Well! I’m out on another solo car camping adventure, a shorter one this time. And instead of taking unpaid leave, I’m on a four-week paid sabbatical that my company has awarded me for being there for five years (though really it’s seven, they just bought the company I worked for five years ago). Naturally, I wanted to use the whole time off traveling, and the most cost effective way to do so on my single income is car camping, which I’ve missed. And there are a bunch of national parks I haven’t explored yet in the southwestern section of the country. Trip plans decided!
This one has begun a little rough, though to be fair my previous trip didn’t start well either, so I suppose it’s tradition. Just a few days before my trip was scheduled to start, I was in Indiana for my grandpa’s funeral. Sad, good to see the family, and exhausting both mentally and physically as any trip to see family is. My grandfather was wonderful and we’ll miss him, but he lived a long and fulfilling life, so the goodbye was bittersweet.
Day 1 – Driving through Colorado to Utah
The unexpected change of plans threw me off a bit, and I was re-adjusting to altitude (as it always takes me a few days to feel normal when coming back to mile-high Denver again), catching up on packing and preparations for the long trip, and dealing with an allergy attack coming back from Indiana. Between all that and predictions for both snow and high winds in the mountains of Colorado, directly on my route, I ended up deciding to delay my start date by a day – and I’m glad I did. Health wise I still wasn’t 100% when I left on Sunday, and unbeknownst to me (because Denver itself was normal weather wise, and the area I’d checked the weather on in the mountains also had normal weather) there were STILL high winds in some of the mountains, with gusts up to 90mph in some areas.
With a long 7.5 hour drive ahead of me to Utah, I rose at dawn to finish the final packing and head off optimistically with plenty of time to spare. About 45 minutes into my drive, I decided to pull over and wait for the worst of the winds to die down, because I’d been white-knuckling it the whole way so far trying not to get thrown into other cars or off the road by the high winds. My car doesn’t handle well with wind anyway, and now there was the cargo box on top of it to add to the resistance. I waited a few hours and the worst of the winds seemed to be gone, so I only had to do another hour or so of that panic driving and survived it. The rest of the way was more normal levels of windy.
Unfortunately, my delay meant that I wouldn’t make it to the campsite I had booked by check-in time (having a latest checkin time is rare for campgrounds, but of course this one had an early one of 5pm). Thankfully, the first nearby campsite I tried was remote enough, and it was early enough in the season, to have plenty of spots, and I made it shortly before sunset. Whew! Even just getting to this point on my first day wore me out. The campsite was beautiful though, a free federally owned one just outside Canyonlands National Park – and the weather was perfect, getting down below freezing overnight, but manageable with no wind.
Day 2 – Canyonlands National Park
Day two started off much better, and I drove around Canyonlands in a cheery mood, blasting energizing electronic dance music in my car. The scenic rocks were what I was there for. I did a couple of short, peaceful hikes and stopped at most of the viewpoints, enjoying one of the less crowded parks. But it was a bit of a speedy trip, as I had to catch up for missing day one and then drive to my next destination, a campground near Capitol Reef National Park.
All looked good there, more beautiful scenery – until it was time to go to bed, and I lay there wondering what that weird, unfamiliar noise was at the back of my car. It went on for hours, and I realized it was the distinct sound of chewing and scratching coming from the underside of the vehicle. There must be a rat trying to make its way in. And so, on night two of a month long trip, began my encounter with rodents.
Somehow, in five and a half months of camping in this exact way nearly two years ago, I had avoided having this happen. Including weeks in the southwestern desert – I camped in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and southern Arizona. I’d just never camped in Utah. I’d heard about rats and mice being a common issue in the desert (especially rats as they’re so resourceful and determined), so I’ve been puzzling over how I’d avoided this previously, because that likely would’ve changed my plans for this entire trip. I’d assumed they were more common for people who camped in one spot to encounter, not those like me who move and drive their vehicles daily. Maybe I was lucky before, or it’s the areas that rodents are more common in, or I’m doing something different that I’ have no idea I’m not aware of. I’d hoped that night would be a fluke, but nope.
After lying there horrified by the sound of this rat and not knowing if it could get in, and trying repeatedly banging on the car (sometimes I’ve found that will scare away some things), setting my blinking red headlamp out on the ground, playing high pitched noises that some think scare them off, to no avail, in frigid 25 degree super windy weather, around 1am I gave up and drove to the nearby town and checked into a chain hotel, collapsing into the bed exhausted.
Day 3 – Capitol Reef National Park
By the next morning, after not sleeping well and driving all day for two days, I was really feeling the effects of altitude sickness, no matter how much water I drank or Tylenol I took, as I kept going up in elevation and was now around 6500 feet (and I’m overly sensitive to altitude sometimes). But I still explored Capitol Reef, skipping hiking and mostly just driving around the scenic drive, which was cool. Thankfully it’s on the smaller side of national parks and another less crowded one.
To mitigate the rat situation, that night I decided to move to a nearby RV park, which had minimal vegetation and hopefully no rodent issues. All seemed good, until the sun started going down and the temperature dropped on another windy day – I heard the rat scratching in the same spot again. My heart sank. I had thought there was no way it had ridden around with me on bumpy roads for hours, but there it was. I thought maybe it had gotten into the spare tire compartment and decided to take everything out of the back of my car and try to lift up the platform to get to it, but it was too big and heavy to do by myself. I packed everything back up and checked back into the hotel, faking small talk with the curious, cheery guy at the front desk but being too exhausted to tell him my actual story.
At this point, I was questioning the entire trip. Should I go home early? What do I do about this? I ended up deciding to take my car to a mechanic in the morning so they could check for the rat under the car.
The local mechanics thought I was nuts and had clearly never gotten this request before, but they did lift up the car and check, and found nothing underneath. Hopefully that meant the rat was gone – maybe that was good. So I continued on.
Day 4 & 5 – Bryce Canyon National Park
My next destination was Bryce Canyon. I had nothing booked for camping yet, so I decided to check into a hotel there for that night just to be safe and not have to make a last minute change yet again. That night, I sat in my car for a few minutes and heard nothing, which seemed like a good sign. Most people may find this surprising, but I didn’t enjoy staying in hotels as much as staying in the more controlled and familiar environment of my car. The hotels were musty and dusty and had down pillows that aggravated my allergies badly (I learned after the first night I needed to bring in my own pillow). The neighbors and workers were loud and woke me up. It was expenses I hadn’t planned on. I wanted to get back to camping.
Thursday, I woke up with another groggy headache, since I was now up to 7300 feet in elevation, congested, stressed, and uncertain, but the short drive into Bryce Canyon National Park changed my outlook. It’s filled with red rocks like the rest of southern Utah, but with dramatic canyon drops and colors that reminded me of the Grand Canyon. The high elevation meant that snow was recent and hadn’t all melted yet, which added a bright contrast to the reds and oranges. It immediately became one of my new favorite national parks, and was a perfect reminder of why I travel like this, with all its challenges. It was worth the suffering to get there! Beautiful views and new places make me euphoric, and between that and the super fresh mountain air, I quickly felt better. I soaked in every single viewpoint and enjoyed the day.
That night, I camped in my car again finally, next to a rustic cabin I’d reserved (that was very dusty and set off my allergies badly) in case I needed to sleep elsewhere. But all was quiet, and I slept well in the cold, windless dark. Two nights of quiet, so things were looking up.
Day 5 & 6 – Zion National Park
This trip is packed with National Parks all relatively close to each other, and next up was one of the more famous and popular, Zion National Park. My campsite for the next two nights would be right outside the park with views of the dramatic red rocks within it – probably the most dramatic and spectacular campsite I’d ever had, so I was pleased, but always nervous about rats now. I spent much of the day chilling there and chatting on the phone to a good friend, and found that the near constant wind of the desert had died down completely after the sun set. It was peaceful, no one near me, with a dark sky full of stars and far from a city.
There were no rats that night – however, I did have mice that I could hear actually got into the car for a while. This was creepy, but didn’t scare me nearly as much as hearing the much larger creature. I know mice can fit into the tiniest of holes and are difficult to keep out from a car, but at established campsites they’ll often come and go and not stick around, which is what they seemed to do. I did manage to eventually sleep, which was good, because I was in a remote spot up a rough dirt road that I couldn’t easily leave in the dark. But it was frustrating to keep having various rodent issues.
Saturday was spent exploring Zion National Park, during which I understood its attraction. This was the first park to be absolutely packed – I left early and just barely made it to the visitor center parking lot in time to grab a spot and take the shuttle from there for the scenic drive around the canyon. This was the first day I was feeling much better, so I did a couple of short but very cool hikes, admiring the towering red walls above and the hardcore climbers who risked their lives climbing them. The rest of the drive through the park was amazing as well, full of more mountainous, swirling rock formations with strange shapes and mesmerizing patterns. Then I found the nearest town, picked up a couple of strong smelling things that some people think keep rodents away, and returned to my campsite.
All seemed well until later that night as I was about to fall asleep, it suddenly got very windy. And almost immediately, I heard a rat again, scratching in the same spot as before. Aghhhh. My conclusion now is that it’s been a different rat each time, drawn by the wind and weather and leaving by morning, because it had been three nights with no sign of one. This time it didn’t sound quite as aggressive, maybe because the cold and wind weren’t as strong, so I hoped it still couldn’t get in. Because I couldn’t easily get to a hotel this time. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but I eventually did during one of its lulls in gnawing – all the sun, driving, and hiking really wears a person out, and I was exhausted enough to get some sleep, though not a ton until at some point it stopped early in the morning.
At this point, I don’t really want to camp in the desert at all anymore. I can deal with most weather, bugs, being without power or running water, and everything else that goes with camping – but I am not a fan of pack rats. Half of the rest of my trip is in the desert though, so at this point I’m planning to still power through, trying to stay as optimistic as possible. There’s always a new challenge on an adventure like this, and despite the uncertainty so far, overall it’s been worth seeing this amazing scenery.
Sweet Wanderings 