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.
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.
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.
They seemed happy enough.
I was also able to get some beautiful sunset shots, like this one:
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:
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.
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!