Two days after Thanksgiving, we left for Ecuador and were gone for two weeks. When we returned, winter had settled in to Utah. It was cold, dark, and our bodies and minds had a hard time adjusting. By the time New Year’s rolled around, we’d had enough, so we packed up Sloth and headed south in search of warmer weather. The freezing cold (10 degree) weather doesn’t agree with Sloth, and once we got ready to leave, he wouldn’t start. We waited for the sun to come up, and once it warmed up a bit, he started like a champ and we were on our way.

Sloth has a faint defroster, but not much in the way of heat (unless he’s working hard, pushing up a hill), so the first few hours of the drive were freezing cold. As we got further and further south, the snow started disappearing, and we slowly started losing our layers.

When we arrived at our camp spot near Overton, Nevada, it was a balmy 50 degrees in the desert. We camped on BLM land, which is free. To get there, you drive on a dirt road along the top of a mesa. There are tons of spots to pull over and park near the edge of the mesa, on the rim of a canyon. Nobody else was even in the vicinity of our campsite, so it was nice and quiet (and we didn’t have to worry about hiding from neighbors when nature called).

The next day we headed into the Valley of Fire state park, which was less than 10 miles away. It’s a small park, and they don’t have many long hikes, but its views are incredible. You don’t have to stay on the trails and can basically walk anywhere, so we wandered around for awhile. Before we headed out, we decided to hike up a trail (wash) to check it out. We only saw one other family on the way, so we basically had the trail to ourselves. It was absolutely beautiful, and we even saw a mountain goat and some deer. After 2.5 miles, we decided to turn around because the weather didn’t look great.

We spent a lovely new year’s eve in the van, watching a movie, making dinner, and heading to bed by 10:00. When you’re on nature’s schedule, it’s hard to stay up late when it gets dark by 4:30. 🙂

The next day we got up, had a lazy morning, then headed back into the park. We drove through some parts of the park we hadn’t made it to the day before, walked around a bit more, then decided to hit the road. The weather forecast didn’t look good for the next day, so we wanted to drive north a bit and spend the night a couple of hours closer to home.

We found a campground in a canyon north of Saint George and scored another free site for the evening. We didn’t have much light left, but we decided to take Max for a hike on a trail that was close by. We’re so happy we did! We went up about 1.5 miles, and the views at the end were AMAZING! A nice fellow hiker told us the trail goes on for miles and miles, so we’re going to have to return and check out more of the trail in the future.

The next morning we packed up and headed out early in order to beat the bad weather. It was nice to escape the cold for a weekend and take Sloth out on an adventure!