Dobro Playing and Stars at Valley of the Gods

After leaving the Needles District of Canyonlands NP, we headed south to another area I’d been longing to see again: Valley of the Gods.

Owned by the Bureau of Land Management, there are no trails at Valley of the Gods. It’s strictly a driving/camping tour. Think of it as the free alternative to Monument Valley.

It was a nice drive south, although not as scenic as the road that led to Canyonlands. We arrived with plenty of time to find a nice place to set up the tent.

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Oh yeah.

We also had plenty of time for me to get out my dobro, practice, and ask Michael to take some pictures of me. He politely obliged.

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It was a beautiful afternoon, and it sure was sweet to play under such an open sky.

 

 

 

 

The dogs had been cooped up for a few hours during the drive, so we loaded up to take them for a sunset walk.

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They seemed happy enough.GoGoTacoNegro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was also able to get some beautiful sunset shots, like this one:

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There are no campfires allowed at Valley of the Gods, which was a bummer. But it allowed for me to try out something new: starry night photography. Valley of the Gods is one of those places with truly dark skies – it’s miles from anywhere. It also wasn’t as cold as Moab, since we were further south. I took a ton of pictures.

Unfortunately, most of them turned out like this:

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If I left the camera on autofocus, it wouldn’t focus at all. And on manual, when I tried to manually focus… well, the above was the usual result.

This was the most usable photo.

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That’s Orion the Hunter on the right. I wish I knew what I did to make this one turn out! Guess I have some research to do.

Next post: sunrise at Valley of the Gods. For once I was happy the dogs woke me up before the sun!