While we sleep in the roof top tent, the dogs spend each night in the back of the truck. They don’t seem to mind – in fact, they readily jump up there (well, Bailey does. Elvis gets carried) as soon as the sun goes down.
Before we go to bed I try to them out for one last potty break. But last night neither one of the dogs would budge. This meant, of course, that they were both awake and whining before dawn.
For once that was a good thing.
Such a beautiful place! It’s hard to take a bad photo here. It’s even harder to stop taking photos here. Eventually Michael got up and set about making breakfast.
Whenever I try this move, whatever’s in the pan… ends up all over the floor. I guess that’s why he’s the chef.
After eating we packed up and drove through the rest of Valley of the Gods. It was amazing, but I have to tell you the best views were from our campsite.
The 17-mile road through Valley of the Gods is not a loop. So when we ended our tour at the west entrance, we had two options:
- Take the highway back through a town called Mexican Hat, and then north back towards Moab.
- Drive the Moki Dugway.
We took the Moki Dugway. With a name like that, how could we not?
It’s a road, by the way – a dirt road that gains 1100 feet in about 3 miles in a series of hairpin turns. Because of the elevation change, this road sports some pretty steep dropoffs – and no guardrails.
For those of you wondering where this road got its name: a dugway is dirt road that is dug out of the mountainside. The Moki Dugway was built by a uranium mining company in the 1950s as the fastest way to get from nearby Fry Canyon to Mexican Hat. And “moki” comes from the Spanish moqui, a name given to Native Americans by Spanish explorers in the 1700s.
I found this link that gives a great description of the Dugway, plus some really great pictures of the road itself, since I forgot to take any.
Then there’s this YouTube video, which makes the Dugway sound so scary I’m amazed we survived.
But we did, and here’s the view from the top:
Zooming in:
Yeah, it’s quite a view up there.
I must have tempted fate in not being afraid of the Moki Dugway. Because for us, the real adventure came later on in the day.
Stay tuned…