I took my first trip to the desert last week!
Momma said it was too cold to take our van, Pedro, because he isn’t insulated for the pipes to not freeze, so we mostly slept in our Subaru at night, which was a first-time thing for all of us!
Our trip was mostly in Utah (with a little in Arizona) to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument which is one of the amazing public lands that doofus president is illegally trying to steal from us. That’s why momma said it was important to go before it was ruined.
We left the house very early in the morning and ate breakfast on the road. Our first real run-around break was after cruising through Las Vegas in a little area in Arizona along a river.
By the time we got to where we were sleeping at night it was dark – not hard in December on the winter solstice 🤣 but the great part about these BLM lands is that you can dispersed camp, so you find a spot and set up for the night!
It was pretty awesome, actually, because Lolo and I could run around like maniacs as long as we had our glow light party necklaces on. I will say though, momma was concerned with what she might see in the morning with light…
She wasn’t surprised to see that OF COURSE we found lots of body parts. We were a little surprised to wake up to SNOW in the desert!
We did a hike close to our camp the first day, which started out with miles and miles of tracking all kinds of animals in the snow. AMAZING! There was lots of poops which made momma think we were smelling cows and bunnies. The thing is – there are lots of bunnies in the desert. Some are HUGE and have long tails! Others have just the little cotton swab tail.
On this hike, momma and daddy were slogging through deep sand but Lolo and I basically stayed off the main trail because of course we were busy tracking things like BUNNIES.
Eventually we got to a really skinny canyon, called a slot canyon.
To be honest, Lolo and I did not think this was as fun as chasing bunnies, but momma thought it was basically the coolest thing ever.
Here is a video of what it looks like to walk through a tiny section of the canyon!
We were able to go part of the way through the canyon before there was a boulder that Lolo and I couldn’t get past. We then went all the way back to the car and left to pick up permits for our next adventure from a ranger station and then drove to Lee’s Ferry in Arizona where we were camping for the night.
It was at camp we got to meet two other border collie brothers that momma loves from Instagram. She was all “OMG IT IS ZAK AMD JYNX! Aren’t they just the CUTEST?!?!”
I don’t know why she thought they were so cute when she has US! But that little Jynx is just a puppy and I guess I understand why people think puppies are cute because they give a million kisses and are soft and fuzzy.
Zak and Jynx actually live in Washington, but were traveling for the holidays too, and we just happened to cross paths out in the middle of the desert – too funny! It was another cold, windy night sleeping in the Subaru after momma spent a long time sorting gear to put in her big backpack, which was our clue that something major was going to be happening soon!
To be continued…
Olaf 