We woke to another freezing morning. As we were camping in a canyon, no sun gets through until about 9am. This means it’s too cold to get up before the sun hits the van, but 9am was too late to be getting up. But we had a plan.

Instead of waiting for the sun, we got up at 7.30am and drove to a sunny spot. As we left the campground, we noticed some frost on the trees and shivered.

We found a sunny spot beside the Colorado river and made our coffee and ate our cereal before continuing.

Today was another spectacular drive. Our first stop was Goblin Valley state park, which, as the name suggests, is a valley full of Goblins! I’ve been very excited about coming here and it didn’t disappoint.

Goblins, also known as hoodoos, stretched out for miles. we did a good hike around them, marvelling at all the different shapes, all standing proudly, like natural garden gnomes. They were certainly impressive.

After the Goblins we continued on to Capitol Reef national park and the scenery just gets better and better. Towering cliffs whichever way we looked. Then we saw a sign.

Scenic drive for next 14 miles

What the heck was that we just drove through then, if the scenic bit is coming up! Turns out we were just arriving into the national park, and as promised, it was beautiful.

We headed down a rutted dirt road, and the colours in the rocks blew us away. It was like an artists pallet, and every turn more beautiful than the last.

At the end of the dirt road was a hike along a river bed. It was nice to view the scenery without Rodger rattling about. We walked for about 30 minutes then continued on.

We found an amazing free camp spot just outside of the national park, and nestled down for the night. Minus four is forecast overnight!