Day 1 - Island Acres

Neither Tresa nor I slept very well last night and Tresa was up before 6am to finish getting ready. Despite all of our work, we still managed to leave about 45 minutes after our planned 11am departure. We hadn't gone a mile when, as we went over a bump, a five-gallon water cooler spilled onto the floor of the van. What a start.

We spent most of ride to Goblin Valley eating lunch and finishing updating our books. We had printed out one page histories of many of the sites we will be visiting and got them all into our binders.

Alan and the scouts were doing team-building activities when we arrived. We picked him up without problem, stretched Tresa's back and continued on our way.

About 5:30 we got gas in Palisade Colorado. (24.2 gallons @ $3.099 and 351 miles = an encouraging 14.5 MPG) We then arrived at the Island Acres section of the James M. Robb Colorado River State Park. We have a tent site and had the tent ready and were eating dinner within 50 minutes of arriving ( a good start!)

After dinner, we walked along the Colorado River and then some went swimming in a pond.

So far so good. The item we left home: towels. Today's travel: 354 miles.