After leaving Shafers Trail and driving to the middle of nowhere, we set up camp. We’d found this area after leaving Goblin Valley State Park a few days before. The only reason we knew this open field was a campground, as compared to all the other open fields - that’s all there were, was because we saw a trailer and several fire rings dotting the various camp sites. The camping spots were free so we grabbed one before the rush of campers. HA! Surprisingly, we actually had two neighbors, a small pull behind trailer and a tent camper on the other side.

Other than these two, we saw a whole lotta nothing. Perfect in my mind. After a long weekend in Moab jammed to the gills with folks, this kind of solitude was nice.

This time we were prepared with fire wood and a freshly stocked cooler. We set up camp, mainly by emptying out the truck, and using the tail gate as our camp table. After eating, I think it hit Amy that we were nowhere near a bathroom so it was down into the gulch behind our site.

The evening promised a wonderful sunset over the mountains to the west and a clear night later, perfect for shooting the Milky Way.

We sat around the fire for a good while, chatting a bit but otherwise simply enjoying each other’s company and the stillness of the night and the fire. Who doesn’t enjoy a good campfire?

And thankfully, it wasn’t nearly as chilly as it had been the last several nights.

We finally climbed into the camper and went to sleep.

I set my mental alarm to wake up about 1:00 am to shoot the night sky, but it let me down and I didn’t get up till 2:00 when nature called.

The sky was clear, the stars unbelievably bright. We had to be at least 50 miles from a town of any size and twice that from any bigger town.

Next morning we were up early. A guy from the camper came over and noticing my camera and tripod told us about a really neat place in the hills behind us, called “Hole in the Rock.” So we decided we’d go check it out.

“Just follow the cairns and you can’t miss it,” he told us confidently.

Famous last words. There were so many cairns leading to everywhere but where we were going that we never did find it. I was disappointed, Amy was hungry so off to Hanksville we drove in search of a great breakfast.

We had a delicious breakfast at Blondies. It was great. We got to talking to the owner and asked her how in the world she came to be in this little town in the middle, and I mean the middle, of nowhere. Her husband got a job in the mines, she had some family around and they enjoyed it there. She said she was gong to sell the restaurant so she could have more time with her grand kids.

We said goodbye, tipped her well, and now stuffed, we headed off towards places unknown.