{"id":1697,"date":"2008-09-03T19:34:36","date_gmt":"2008-09-03T23:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2008-09-03T19:52:48","modified_gmt":"2008-09-03T23:52:48","slug":"hovenweep-national-monument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1697","title":{"rendered":"Hovenweep National Monument"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is already an amazingly great National Park and we’ve only been here a few hours.<\/p>\n

If you were looking for the middle of nowhere, Hovenweep is pretty close. \u00a0 The nearest town (fuel, services, food, etc) is Cortez, about 44 miles away via a bumpy County Road. \u00a0 The park is in the midst of vast tracts of open desert. \u00a0 Almost nobody lives in the area. \u00a0 There are few roads.<\/p>\n

And yet, when we pulled in, we were blown away to find a completely modern, accessible, and handsome Visitor Center, and just beyond it, one of the most beautiful campgrounds we’ve ever seen. \u00a0 I mean, it’s the nicest place we’ve camped since Frisco campground in the Outer Banks. \u00a0 And best of all, there’s nobody here.<\/p>\n

\"hovenweep-campsite.jpg\"<\/a>I mean nobody<\/em>. \u00a0 In the 30 site campground, there is one camper: ours, shining brilliantly in the desert sun in space #4 with a gorgeous view in all direction. \u00a0 In the Visitor Center, there are two rangers and nobody else, so we got extremely personalized service at the desk. \u00a0 On the Ruins Trail that we hiked this afternoon (2.0 miles), we saw two people who quickly disappeared, and other than that we had the place to ourselves.<\/p>\n

And the kicker is that for some strange reason, there’s a cellular signal here. \u00a0 There’s not supposed to be. \u00a0 I’m supposed to be offline, disconnected from the Internet. \u00a0 And yet, when the winds blows right and I hold my breath, I can get a cell phone signal.<\/p>\n

This changes everything. \u00a0 We no longer have to rocket through this park and Natural Bridges (our next stop) because work is piling up. \u00a0 We can take our time, because every morning and evening I can get online and keep up with business.<\/p>\n

When the stars are telling you something, you’ve got to listen. \u00a0 It’s $10 a night to stay here, the weather forecast is for sunny mid-80s all week, we have a gorgeous spot and our water tank is full. \u00a0 It all adds up to: “STAY”. \u00a0 So we’ll stay for at least two nights and then decide if we want to move on.<\/p>\n

It seems almost unfair that we should have all this to ourselves, but I’m not complaining. The ancient ruins all around here are fascinating, Emma’s doing another Junior Ranger program, we’re luxuriating in the dry air, and there’s plenty to do in the area. \u00a0 This is the type of situation that we live for. \u00a0 It makes all those Wal-Mart nights and borderline campgrounds and high fuel prices worthwhile. \u00a0 May as well enjoy it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is already an amazingly great National Park and we’ve only been here a few hours. If you were looking for the middle of nowhere, Hovenweep is pretty close. \u00a0 The nearest town (fuel, services, food, etc) is Cortez, about 44 miles away via a bumpy County Road. \u00a0 The park is in the midst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}