This was another spontaneous trip quickly thrown together, even more quickly than our 2 ½ week trip to Vancouver Island, which we had only gotten back from a little over a week ago.

As I mentioned in my trip post for that Vancouver trip, we were supposed to go to Burning Man this year, something that Herb has wanted to do since the 90s. In fact, we even had highly-coveted tickets. However, I’m not exactly the “Burner” type and I hate the heat, so about a month before it was to start, I told Herb I didn’t think I would survive 10 days in the desert heat. Knowing I would be miserable - and therefore he would be - he agreed to return the tickets and get a refund, which we did.

This was all before Hurricane Hillary hit the West and basically turned the Black Rock Desert in Nevada where Burning Man is held into a muddy, slippery mess where people couldn’t get in or out. It was the major headline in the news. I felt pretty smug about our early selling of tickets, as people weren’t able to even give them away anymore. How prescient of us.

However, in return for Herb canceling our Burning Man adventure, I agreed to replace it with a desert trip - Herb loves the desert. The choices were either trailering our boat to Lake Powell or a 4WD trip through Utah. But the deserts were still a mess from the Hurricane. Death Valley was closed and didn’t plan to reopen until mid-October.

I suggested a trip up the coast to Vancouver Island instead, a place we had never been to and had always wanted to go. So off we went for 17 days on a 2,500 mile road trip.

We were hardly back 2 days before Herb asked about our Utah trip. What Utah trip I thought. We just did the Pacific Northwest instead. Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Herb did not think of that trip as a replacement, but an extra trip.

Ugh…I really didn’t want to go on another road trip so soon, so I suggested that lots of men go away without their wives. I held out for a while, but finally gave in because I felt bad for him going alone.

So, I quickly threw together a draft of an itinerary that gave some structure to the trip. I even made a few reservations at campgrounds and motels in difficult to get places. Herb was quite happy about my turnaround. I was too.

It was an amazing trip, filled with some new discoveries, like Factory Butte, the Skyline Rim Overlook, the Lone Spire, and some old favorites, like Goblin Valley, Cathedral Valley, Kodachrome State Park, and Bryce.