Where would you rather stay?

While Overland Expo West was great and informative, Ann and I were ready to get back to the adventure part of our trip.  Our next leg would take us north, and we’d spend the next few days exploring parts the Bears Ears National Monument.  To get there, we had to go through Monument Valley, famed for its use in John Ford westerns.  

But before we get back to the story, I thought it might be worthwhile to share one of the dilemmas Ann and I now have with Beast.  The fact is, we can now live anywhere we want, so long as we don’t get towed away by the authorities.  Plus, due to Beast’s agility, we can pretty much get to anywhere we want.  However, there are always tradeoffs, and without getting too much into the details of the next leg of the trip, the two nights after we left the Expo were a perfect example of the types of decision-making (and sacrifices) we’re forced to make.  

Our next two nights were spent by Monument Valley and just up the road a bit in Valley of the Gods.  

While we could have stayed on Navajo Land in Monument Valley, the reality was it had already been 3 nights without a shower and we weren’t sure when our next opportunity would be to top off on water (power is not an issue for us), so we opted to stay in Goulding’s Campground just outside Monument Valley so we could do both.  The added bonus was that we were in a nice secluded bowl that did a decent job of keeping the steady wind from totally buffeting Beast while we slept.  

The draw back was that . . . well . . .

Secluded is not the word I would use.  And don’t bother asking what the view in the other direction was because, unless you like looking at 25’ fifth wheels, or 30’ RVs, it wasn’t much.  However, we did leave the campground feeling nice and clean!

Now, by comparison, this was our campsite in Valley of the Gods.

No showers (other than in Beast, which we did not use), no public toilet (but with one in Beast), and no protection from the wind.  To be honest, it was so intense that we slept with the top down - Ann got to use the folded-out dinette, I was on the floor.  And I even taped a bag over the snorkel so dust wouldn’t accumulate in it during the night (we faced into the wind to minimize the rocking - it didn’t help all that much, but it did rock me to sleep).  

However, this was the view the next morning (taken with a lens roughly equivalent to our eyes).

Now, to be honest, we did have some neighbors.  I had to measure them out on Google Earth, but there was another Sportsmobile by a rock outcropping about 1/2 mile to our south, 2 larger RVs by the creek to the north about 3/4 mile away, and a group of 8 overland vehicles about 1-1/4 miles to the southwest.  If you look carefully, you might see some of them in the next blog post.

So which campsite would you rather have?  We know which one we prefer!