#399 Sheeps Bridge Virgin Utah, BLM boondocking

I headed out from Temple View and sent our new friend Ben a text telling them where I was going and left coordinates and such and we agreed to meet at a certain time. When we got there, they were pulled over and waiting. We parked and he said we took a look but there was no vacancy down there. I said, well I kind of owe it to myself to look anyway. They said they were going to Zion and I said I hope to see you later. By now already given them my campsite finder, my days end directory, and stuff like that, and felt like I had been a helper to new RV’rs. If I never saw them again at least I had been kind and represented planet earth well.

As is my habit we dropped the rig and drove down about a mile and immediately found that all of the cool places we had seen two years ago are now kind of closed off with barb wire and little fences with signs like no trespassing, no parking, no camping.

We started realizing that the gig was up in that respect but there were designated campsites that were BLM approved. You had to park where a fire ring was present and behave yourself. Two years ago when we were here it was the wild west and you could just park wherever you felt like, but it seems that has now officially ended.

I wanted to be prepared to find perhaps the only site available so I took my couple of rugs and beach chairs so that I could create a Cothren colony if I were able to find a site. Even if you find it unless you occupy it ain't yours. I guess I was just a little more curious or more persistent but I found a perfect site. Because I didn't know how long it would last, I pulled in set out my carpets pulled out both of my chairs which blocked the entrance and the exit, and put as much gear out as I could to make it mine. I went back and got the rig quickly before anybody saw it.

I found It odd that the BLM was pretty full and it was only Wednesday. Places like these would typically only be full on the weekends. I returned with the RV down a bumpy little dirt road but we managed. Just as I was about to enter it looked like somebody was pulling into the exit area and I kind of looked at them like what the heck man this is my site. Some of that may have just been in my head as they could have just been turning around. My lower nature thought they were trying to get my site and I was getting a little excited. They went away. I moved my stuff out from the entrance, pulled the RV in, and tried to position us with the driver side facing due west. As pull-throughs go this one would be considered about 150 feet long and then it went back into the desert probably another hundred feet.

I'm just saying it was pretty big.

I was pleased I was able to have internet using my truck's Wi-Fi hotspot. No T- mobile though. To be this remote that was pretty amazing. I later found out the truck WI WF is satellite-based which explained why we always had a signal. I set up and got comfortable took a picture of the campsite number marking our site and texted it to Ben, our new cohorts.

I said well, this is where we are if you want to come by there’s plenty of room for your rig if you want to share this site.

I didn't know what to expect but they did come by ad that was kind of cool. They arrived towards dusk and got set up. Watching them struggle with leveling made me realize how much I like my hydraulic auto-leveling system. It was quite a long day for them so we just agreed to say we'll see you tomorrow if you wish and have a meal.

They came visiting at a reasonable hour maybe eight or nine am and said if we wished they would share breakfast with us. Qui Qui had made a wonderful traditional Chinese breakfast with some noodles and eggs and brought it over to the RV and we all sat at our table and had a wonderful time.

Ben was doing some kind of an IT remote job and that's how he managed to make all this work. He was pretty cool because when I said this is what my son Ben wants to do this someday he offered to help Ben get a remote job. Of course, we were very grateful.

A couple of days later Ben and Qui Qui moved on as they were heading towards Bryce. I told him about the Grand Escalante and warned them that although it was beautiful it might be kind of scary. They got to Bryce and said it was wonderful and we never saw them again but we did stay in touch They were a wonderful family.

Here is a picture of our rig and Bens from a ways off showing how remote this area is. Lots of peace and quiet.

We stayed for a couple of days and really enjoyed the area. we wanted to go to Zion but it was just next to impossible because they were only letting 200 people in per day and you had to get a reservation on the shuttle. It was kind of impossible to do quickly before it's sold out each day. We went to the town of Hurricane quite a few times. We also went on a hike called the Cinder Cone and it was just about straight up a hill at some point and we really got a kick out of the fact that we were looking at the cone of a volcano. It was quite a long hike we were a little worn out but it was good after doing all of this.

We saw another sign that talked about the area where we are. It's called Hurricane Cliffs. Way up on the mesa above back in the 60’s space race they tested rocket engines on sleds here

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/UT/Airfields_UT_SW.htm

Toyota

One day India and I were walking at the BLM and we saw some folks going down a really steep road like straight down in a Toyota four-wheel-drive-looking thing.

They were doing things in that vehicle I wouldn't even do as a hiker with walking sticks but go for it guys.

We kept on walking back in the general direction of the RV and we saw them experimenting on another little area it was straight down as it could be probably a cliff of maybe 15 feet not quite vertical but no car could do this. We didn't know what they were about to do but they were giving the new vehicle a workout. I took a video and will paste it here but that truck went down almost vertically and survived, went down, played around, and came back and got back up the same hill. It was very impressive to see what that truck could do. I had no idea they would be successful but they pulled it off.

For me, it was getting pretty close to the time to fly to Wilmington so we went on down towards Temple View and got India settled in. They put us in a temporary spot until May 1. I had plans to leave about two days later so they had agreed to move her to the permanent spot with one of their trucks.