Friday morning was not so windy, so Carl got the drone out to take some pictures... they may help you get an idea of what the site was like where we parked...
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Looking toward the north... |
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... east (note that the county road goes kind of around and past the camping location). |
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Toward the south... |
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... south west and County Road 16. |
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Gracie and the Jee-rage from way up high! |
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We were having our breakfast outside. |
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Looking over Gracie toward the south |
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Gracie in the spot -- we would normally like to have our big front window facing the view, but it was so warm, and the view would have us facing south or southwest, and that would give us so much heat gain in the rig. |
I drove a little ways down the county road to look at some other locations that were documented in the Days End Directory. This directory is "crowd-sourced" meaning that the users of it produce and maintain the information (it has a fabulous editor, Guy, who keeps everything straight). Users provide input on locations, whether the description is still valid, any updates required, sometimes that a location needs to be deleted (if there are now "no overnight parking" signs), and sometimes providing information on new locations. Guy takes all that information and produces nearly constant updates to the directory. Contributing to the information in the directory gives us, as users, points -- 1 point for identifying the information is correct, 2 points for any update, and 4 points for a brand new location. The cost to access the directory is $24/year, but users can "cash in" 24 points to pay the fee. I paid money for the directory my first year, and every year since, I have had enough points to not have to pay anything additional. Last year in Alaska, we made an effort to view every Days End Directory location that we passed, providing updates to the listings (we were able to provide the GPS coordinates for many listings) -- netting us 120 points, which has us now paid up for 5 years!
I looked at the information in the directory about some additional listings near Dinosaur National Monument, traveled to the location and identified some updates which I sent in to Guy later on Friday.
On my way back on the county road, I could see Gracie up at the top of the plateau...
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Can you see Gracie way up there on the top of the plateau? |
We had planned to stay a week at the boondocking location, but we had shortened it by a couple of days because we stayed at Strawberry Bay Campground for a longer time. Then, when we got there, with the heat and the wind, we decided that we had enjoyed visiting this location, but that this was not an ideal time to be here -- so we found a full hookup campground at a reasonable cost in Rangely, Colorado, and headed out before the winds got too high to impact our ability to travel. Winds of 20-25MPH with gusts up to 45MPH were predicted, and, when you're driving a vehicle that is built somewhat like a billboard, windy weather is not your friend!
I'm grateful that Carl got to see this place that I have loved, and he loved it too. Maybe we'll be back sometime, when the weather is cooler and the winds are not blowing so strongly!