Friendly Flash Flood

We saw all the symptoms of an impending flash flood: dark grey clouds over our westerly direction, thunder despite our sunshine, a 20 minute cloudburst, the creeping foamy trickle of water, newly formed waterfalls. Then our previous dry canyon became a ripply river within a minute.
Yet, the worse fear I had was my shoes getting wet. We had found a rock over-hang while the cloud busted open and ate lunch. Caramel, a Boxer dog, drank rain water that streamed off the overhang as if was coming from a Camelback tube. Later, she played in the foamy water by tossing up the foam in the air and catching it. We watched water shoot through conical slickrock chutes. As we continued to hike up Mitchell Canyon, we stayed higher than the caramel-colored river and hopped on rocks when we had to cross the rising river. We managed to record the GPS coordinates of "Sand Dollar Rock" (our objective) and I didn't get my shoes wet until the last crossing to the truck. The drive down Alvey Wash road was another story: How not to get your vehicle stuck in the mud. Not all floods are nice.

Dogs Allowed

I'm not a fan of organized campgrounds, but I had to get out of the house where we work and live. Somewhere close and dog friendly. Kodachrome State Park is only 45 minutes west of us and they allow dogs. Yay! I did feel a bit guilty when my dog made foot-prints on the Zen-like raked dirt that surrounded our campsite. And what a treat it was to take a HOT shower after mountain biking a single track through weird red rock formations on Panoramic trail. When the sun set, the towers and monoliths lit up as if they were on fire. Sometimes civilized camping is pure pleasure.

I Get to Go Too!

As I age, I appreciate getting out of the house even more. Lately, the big dogs (my owners), leave me behind to guard the house and to sleep on the forbidden couch. In this picture, the big girls took me backpacking to Blind Lake, close to Grover, Utah. The vistas were spectacular, water abundant, and the scents diverse. I'd go back to Blind Lake and bring fishing gear to catch my supper. I'm forever young when on an adventure with the big dogs.