Early last spring we took a trip down to southern Utah and had a blast pushing Peanut into some beautiful new areas. To make the most out of a long weekend, we drove from our home in Colorado until late in the night (breaking our normal rule of not attempting to find camp after dark) until we finally found a spot to call home for our first night.

Waking up in Valley of the Gods was simply stunning!

After a late breakfast and lazy morning around camp we pushed on to explore some beautiful and remote dirt roads in Peanut until we found a place to call home for the next few days.

Excited to use our new GoPro, we took the time to stop along the way to get some fun footage of Peanut driving through the desert and over gnarly 4x4 terrain. Unfortunately, we somehow ended up loosing that SD card on the last day of our trip (these SD cards are so freaking tiny nowadays!) along with all that gnarly 4x4 footage. Maybe some future traveler will magically find that microscopic SD card in the dirt of that remote desert road and somehow return it to us. We were thankful that we had other cameras with us to capture these images and videos.

For the next three days, we basked in the solitude of the remote canyon, soaking up the fleeting warmth of the winter desert sun.

There was an offshoot from the dirt road where we were camped that continued further up a drainage where we hoped to find some ancient petroglyphs. We left Peanut at camp and set off on our bikes with a happy Greta dog to run along side us.

After biking a few miles up the unmaintained dirt road, we abandoned our bikes and set off on foot further up the drainage where we carefully picked our way across the open desert landscape to minimize our impact, and avoiding the desert cryptobiotic crust as best we could.

Weaving our way up a wash and over boulders, we took the time to stop and appreciate the early spring flowers beginning to bloom, and with patience were able to find quite a few signs of ancient peoples that may have inhabited this particular area.

Before hitting the road for a long and slow drive in Peanut back home, we made a quick stop at the overlook at Goosenecks State Park. It was beautiful even in harsh midday sun, so I can only imagine how pretty this spot would be at sunrise or sunset!

And with that, we wrapped up another great long weekend of dirt road adventures and headed home to begin planning the next one!

Until next time!

-Christina