Time to move on. Next stop, Utah. There is a BLM campground, Sand Island Campground, that is on the banks of the San Juan River, just outside of Bluff, Utah. For a BLM boondocking campground it is expensive at $15 a night ($7.50 with the Senior discount), but that is where we were headed.
As soon as we entered Utah, the mesas, buttes, and mountain sides changed from the beautiful, as we were used to, to the stunning. From the Davis Mountains in Texas, and throughout all of New Mexico, we have gotten hooked on the mountains as our constant and noble companion. But we were not prepared for Utah’s colors. The bright reds, maroons, oranges, and tans blazed like over-the-top Elvis velvet art.
For the first time, we got skunked. Even at 9:48 am, Sand Island’s 23 campsites are all occupied. One large 5th wheeler had just beaten us to the last open site by mere minutes.
It turns out that Sand Island, being full, did us a favor. My backup plan, finding a dispersed campsite along the Valley of the Gods Road worked out just fine. There are a zillion sites along the 17 mile gravel road, all with views too awesome to describe, all total boondocking, and all free. The road is in rough shape so I was delighted to find that the first group of sites, called Seven Sailors, was wide open.
A site is basically a large fairly flat gravel pad. Most of these pads are single sites scattered throughout the Valley of the Gods. At Seven Sailors, there are a handful, I counted four distinct pads with other spots that could be used in a pinch, grouped a bit closer together, about 150 feet apart.
There was a 5th wheeler set up on one pad about 300 feet away. We plopped down under a particularly stunning dark red butte on what we believed to be the best site. We even found a spot that was perfectly level.
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