After spending ten days at Rock Hound State Park in June, we decided we liked it so much we would return here during the winter months. We were fortunate enough to receive a camp ground hosting position, so we will be staying here for the winter and will not have to move every two weeks.
Here is a photo of our camp site. There is plenty of shade and privacy.
Here is the view from the north end of the trailer. All the campsites are above us to the East.
This view of the Visitor's Center also shows the Florida Mountains to the south. We work in the Visitor's Center part of the time, and the rest of the time we serve as Camp Ground Hosts. We work four days on and four off. On our off days there is a single man who works four days.
I am going to skip ahead on my posts and feature a successful Ibex hunt. We met Jack Ellis in September and he told us about the up-coming Ibex hunt. He promised to let us know if he was successful during the bow hunt in October.
He was good for his word. When he came back he was accompanied by his two sons, Caleb and Josh. They hunted mostly in the Florida mountan range.
Here are some of the Ibex that they were hunting. They were out of range for the bow in this picture.
Josh and Caleb almost imitated the goats to get a better view.
Their approach to stalking the Ibex was daring and breath taking.
In the long run, it was all worth it. They had movies on their i-phones they shared with us, but I do not know how to put them on the blog.
Thank you Jack, Caleb, and Josh for sharing your hunting experience with us and allowing us to share it with our blog visitors.
I will close this blog post with another beautiful sunset view from Rock Hound State Park.
We left Roy, Utah around 1:00 pm, which was not our plan, because I went to the shooting range with our son. It was worth the delay. Because we got started so late, we hit the rush hour traffic through Salt Lake City. We arrived in Price, Utah in time to find a spot in the Walmart parking lot. Dinner was a trip to the in-store Subway. Do not plan on camping in the Walmart parking lot if you expect quiet. A Semi refrigeration truck pulled in close to us with his motor running all night. We moved to another location on their lot, but it did not help much.
This was our first rest stop at Tie Fork. It is surrounded by some beautiful rock formations. Behind the building in this view is a nice grassy area with benches and an old re-stored train.
Engine 435, the restored narrow gage train that ran out of Helper, Utah.
As you can see, the engine was restored, or created to be like the original by Original Creations, INC., Helper, Utah.
This interesting rock formation is visible from the parking lot of the visitor's center.
Here is a typical water tower for supplying the water for the steam engine.
We traveled through Moab without a stop and headed for Farmington, New Mexico. We were hurrying because we wanted to get there before the DMV closed. We thought we needed to get our new pickup and trailer inspected and licensed.
Before we arrived in Farmington we received a call from an angelic like employee of the New Mexico DMV informing us our pickup was licensed and our registration was being sent to our address. She also emailed us a copy so we could show proof of registration if necessary. Because it was for a new vehicle, no vin inspection was necessary. The same was true for the trailer but it took longer because the dealer took his own sweet time sending the inforation to the DMV.
Our next stop was at Navajo Lake State Park in New Mexico. It is one of the largest lakes in the state, and it spans the border of New Mexico and Colorado. I thought it was ironic since we had kayaked Navajo Lake, Utah with our son, Ben.
This photo was taken from the dam across the Colorado River that forms Navajo Lake.
It is a beautiful lake, but we did not spend much time here because we could not find a suitable camp site. We were able camp for one night in a reserve site. There was a site we could get into on Friday. We had arrived on Wednesday, but could not find a site for Thursday so we headed for Heron Lake State Park.
There were no First-Come sites available at Heron so we went on over to El Vado Lake State Park. We camped there for 10 days, then moved over to Heron on a Sunday morning and found an almost perfect site. It was a pull-through surrounded by trees and shrubs, affording us privacy and quiet.
At El Vado we were kayaking when we got caught in a thunder storm. In one cloud burst we got drinched. It let up, and before we got back to the dock another storm moved in. Lightening stuck the side of the mountain about a mile from our location. We were holding our breaths and silently praying we would get back to shore safely.
We took up our hobby of hummingbird watching at Heron. This time we had our own feeder. In this view you can see a Roufus hovering by the feeder. This little guy was very territorial and shelfish. He fought off as many other hummingbirds as possible. One time he actually locked feet with another mid-air, and they fell to the ground. Both got up apparently uninjured and continued to fight for a sip of sugar water.
New Mexico sun sets are always beautiful, and a good way to bring this blog post to a close. The next post will take us back to Leisburg, Manzano, and Rock Hound State Parks.
Todays post takes us to Willard Bay's South Marina near Roy, Utah.
Willard Bay State Park has two marinas and campgrounds. We were using our OnStar for directions as we came in from Idaho. It gave us directions to the North marina. We missed the turn off and went into the South Marina by mistake.
There was one first-come, first-serve sight available, and we took it. It turned out to be the right decision because it was closer to our son's apartment in Roy, Utah where we wanted to be.
We enjoyed kayaking in between our trips into Roy to visit with him, but I did not think to take pictures with our camera. We did get some photos with our phone.
This picture of a hawk that flew from post-to-post and posed for us also shows the marina in the background. In the distance to the left of the marina is the campground behind the trees.
This photo was taken at Antelope Island, also near Roy, Utah. Our son took us on a tour of the island. We watched these bison for a while, and he played a recording of a bison call over a speaker. It was a recording he downloaded from the internet. It must have been part of a mating call because the bull immediately went to the female bison and began sniffing her. She showed no interest in him.
My next post will be our trip back to New Mexico by way of Navajo Lake State Park, Heron Lake State Park, and Elvado Lake State Park.
