Not The Painter

May 11-16, 2026  — Day 47 to 53 Sun Outdoors Canyonlands, Moab UT Susan went to Urgent Care on the 11th. It wasn’t flu or COVID “just” some stupid virus. While Paul was waiting in the lobby, a masked up COVID patient came in. Susan convinced Paul to wait outside. (susan here: he did not need to catch COVID on top of whatever it was that we picked up.) Paul was feeling a little off and he jokingly thought he should join her in the examination room. We went to the grocery store to stock up on easy to prepare foods, and the supportive things that were recommended then headed…

May 10, 2026  — Day 47 Monument Valley KOA, Monument Valley UT — Sun Outdoors Canyonlands, Moab UT “You’re in no shape to drive,” he said, and she didn’t disagree. Susan was sick. We could have stayed here while she recovered, but it was dusty, hot and in the middle of nowhere. Let’s go to Moab. Moab. This is Jeep mecca, mountain biking mecca, never in any of our planning did we think we’d visit Moab. But why Moab? We wanted to get out of the heat. We can’t remember if we mentioned this earlier in the blog, but the plan was to leave Phoenix and follow the bird migrations…

May 9, 2026  — Day 46 Monument Valley KOA, Monument Valley UT Susan woke up still feeling tired [cue ominous music] so we just hung out some. It seemed that the best way to see the Monument Valley sights was to get a Navajo tour and one geared towards photography. You need two tours actually, one for sunrise and one for sunset. We watched a video from one of our favorite YouTube vloggers, Through My Lens, and he drove the scenic drive. They only allow a certain number of cars in at time. This means you could end up waiting a while just to get in. Given her fatigue, we…

May 8, 2026  — Day 45 Valley of the Gods BLM, Mexican Hat, UT — Monument Valley KOA, Monument Valley UT. We had been up late but somehow Paul woke early enough to see the sunrise. He wasn’t going to wake Susan up unless it was worth it. He sat in the front passenger seat watching the sky glow increase. When color hit the Seven Sailors he knew she wouldn’t want to miss it. So we went outside watched. Paul photographed the sunrise. Then, what’s next? We couldn’t head down to Monument Valley to check in, check in time are usually between 1 and 3pm. Driving the Valley of the…

May 7, 2026  — Day 44 Antelope Point Marina & RV Park, Page, AZ — Valley of the Gods BLM, Mexican Hat, UT We googled around and found that photography is better at sunrise than sunset for Horseshoe Bend. Plus, it would be far less crowded. So we got up at 4AM. Really we did! Tea was made and we woke up enough to make the 25-30 minute ride. We needed time to do the 1/2 mile walk to the viewing area plus a bit of time to setup before sunrise at 5:25am. We were concerned about the parking lot being closed because the posted hours are sunrise to sunset.…

May 6, 2026  — Day 43 Antelope Point Marina & RV Park, Page AZ We were plugged in all night long and yet we found that our batteries were not at 100% in the morning. We had reached 100% but were now discharging. How odd. Paul has been working on some battery monitoring software and it has helped us a lot, and it agrees with the Victron app, we’re not charging. It rises to 100% ((920Ah) and then falls. And the remote says we’re not charging. We’ll figure this out later. The washer, dryer work, and refrigerator work. Let’s keep loading and unloading dirty clothes, towels and sheets for what…

May 5, 2026  — Day 42 Lone Rock Beach Campground, Glen Canyon Recreation Area, Big Water, UT — Antelope Point Marina & RV Park, Page AZ It is always good when moving day starts off pretty. And looking the other direction…. We’re not going far, just over to Page, AZ. Why? We don’t know when we’ll get hookups again and we need to do laundry! We’ve been boondocking for 10 days with no hookups whatsoever. We run the generator to get power when we need to. We’re running about 3-5 hours a day. We’ve filled up with potable water once. But eventually you have to move on because at Lone…

May 4, 2026  — Day 41 Lone Rock Beach Campground, Glen Canyon Recreation Area, Big Water, UT We took today off. Maybe we took two days off? We just don’t remember. It IS May 22nd as we’re typing this blog. All we know is that in the evening we were playing Astro on PlayStation 5. We have no idea what to do with that. So Paul cheated, he just asked Claude. We’re supposed to free that poor bot. We have no idea how to do that. We’d better play more and figure out how.

May 3, 2026 — Day 40 Lone Rock Beach Campground, Glen Canyon Recreation Area, Big Water, UT This is a long post primarily of pictures, not walls of text. So it’s ok. Put your phone on silent, get a cold drink, put your feet up and dive in. We have two things to do today! Visit the Toadstool Hoodoos and then drive the nearby Cottonwood Canyon Road. But first we’ll stop in at the Visitor Center for stamps in our book! We’re a sucker for a Visitor Center. Sadly, it was closed. We had read that might be but we hoped it was open. You see, supposedly they had a…

May 2, 2026 — Day 39 Lone Rock Beach Campground, Glen Canyon Recreation Area, Big Water, UT Today was a slow do nothing day. This is one of the advantages of being on the road for so long, and staying in one place for an extended period. You can just take a vacation day now and then. (susan here: “taking a vacation from your vacation”—Yes, I know it sounds funny but you can actually have too much adventure!) The only thing we really did was head into Arizona. It sounds far but we are just across the border. We were heading for the Pilot Gas station. As it turns out…