I got an early start and set out west from Rifle, Colorado. I stopped in Grand Junction, Colorado for some gas and was impressed by the town. It's the largest town in western Colorado, with around 50,000 residents. It seems like a good mix of outdoors/culture/hangout spots. I found a cafe and settled down to figure out where to go in Moab.

Apparently the Moab area was once famous for unregulated, free camping along the river west of town. People would just throw up tents and have wild hippy bonfire parties every night. It was a 'there's always room for one more' type of thing. After years of this, the fragile desert ecosystem was getting trashed, so the BLM came in and regulated everything. Now there are many paid campgrounds, but very few spots where free camping is allowed. Most of these are 20+ miles outside of town. Luckily, I found that one that was along my path.

Approaching the northeast Utah canyonland was pretty breathtaking. After hours of low scraggly plains I followed the Colorado River into red rock formations erupting into the sky in all directions.

I drove a few miles further and turned onto Onion Creek Road, a dirt road off of highway 128 about 20 miles from Moab. There are a ton of free primitive campgrounds there. I drove for quite awhile down the road, driving along - and sometimes through - the creek and the red rock cliffs.

Driving through you could see the path of the stream cutting through the layers of rock over millions of years.

I set up camp and scrounged around for some firewood. I didn't find much but luckily the last campers had left a good amount. I scared several small lizards and a tarantula. I'd never seen a wild tarantula before, but I'd always been terrified of them after seeing the movie 'Arachnaphobia' as a child. The little spider was very fast, and seeing it racing away, so scared of me, immediately cured me of my fear. So that was good.

Behind my campground was a giant rock formation. My mom told me that I have health insurance again, so I decided to climb it. I love climbing rocks, it's such a cool feeling. The red sandstone was very rough and easy to grip. Here I am really high up there next to a cool dome thing (I look like hell and the picture didn't really turn out, but use your imagination).

I went back to camp and made a fire. My drinks were warm so I made a cooler in the stream.

The wind was really strong and kept knocking the rain fly off my tent. The clouds looked like they might rain, so I had to keep tying it back on. The wind was so heavy that it was hard to sleep.