Sunday May 7, 2023 - Hovenweep National Monument to Natural Bridges National Monument

We left Hovenweep fairly early and headed east toward Cortez. We needed propane, we needed gas and we wanted breakfast so Cortez was 90 minutes away and had big stores unlike where we’ve been the last few days. After breakfast we hit the farm supply place for propane, but the young employee could not get any propane to go into the tank. So we gave up. It’s a 5lb tank, which is small, and maybe too small for their setup. I’ll try the stove again??

Next was Walmart for groceries, and then gas, which was $2.69 (40 cents cheaper than where we’ve been). The tank on this is about 20 gallons so it adds up. Then back north west, south on RT 191, and back toward Natural Bridges.

We are all over this National Monument thing. But today it was nip and tuck getting a campsite at Natural Bridges. We got here around 1:00 pm and 12 of the 13 sites were taken. The last one is a handicapped site, but there’s a sign saying that if it’s the last site available and you are only staying one night, then it’s yours. We asked a ranger driving through the park and he said it was ours.  We commandeered it and filled out the self register envelope ($8 with senior pass, ka-ching), clipped the tag on the post and walked to the visitor center. I was still worried the handicapped site would end up being a Seinfeld episode somehow, but we asked another ranger and she said it was fine. There are a lot of BLM dispersed camping sites nearby so that was the backup.

This is a small park (only 13 campsites) and it was pretty busy today. You can drive the nine mile loop and check out the lookout stops and you can hike closer to the natural bridges. There are three bridges. We did the drive and did a couple of the shorter hikes. The bridges form when the river digs a serpentine path through the sandstone, and when the serpentine gets wide, the water breaks through one of the bends and that bend is now out of the picture, so the river runs through the undercut arch and becomes a bridge.

On our last stop we met a sweet older 80-something couple whose son and wife were taking them on a camping trip in their truck/camper setup for two weeks. The youngsters were hiking down to a bridge and the parents stayed above. The older man was a retired theater professor and they had lived in South Dakota the last 43 years. What a fun bunch. Good kids for taking their elderly parents camping. And the parents were sleeping in a tent!

Back to the campsite and drinks and supper.

Odo = 5870, mileage after last tank = 20.2mpg

Day 35