In the morning I walk to the frontdesk of the hotel and ask if I can stay another night. I realize that driving and hiking every day in a row is a bit tiring and I wouldn’t mind staying at this nice place for another day. Unfortunately the lady at the register tells me that the hotel is fully booked today, so I take that as a sign that it’s time for me to continue traveling. I have breakfast at the restaurant and then come up with another idea. Sometimes you can check out late at hotels and when I ask about that, she says it’s fine that I check out at noon. I’m happy about that, because it’ll give me some time to catch up with work and to go for another dive in the pool. I go back to my hotel room to work for a while and then go for a swim. It’s quiet there and I have whole pool for myself. It’s very relaxing to swim a few lapses. Just before noon I take a shower, pack my bags and check out with the friendly people at the frontdesk. This is definitely one of my all-time favorite hotels.
The plan is to drive to Arches National Park today. My first stop is a town about two hours north of Bryce where there is a Walmart, so I can stack up on food. From there it’s a few more hours until I’m close to Arches. I found a free campsite at the map, just about 20 minutes away from the national park. To get there you have to drive over a dirt road, but it’s not too bad. The camping area is huge and stretches out for miles. There are many cars in the area, but since they’re all quite spread out, it’s not problem. I find a good spot for my minivan to stay for the night and have dinner with a movie in the back of the car. When it’s getting dark I’m trying to sleep, but I had bought a cheaper air mattress this time and it’s less comfortable than I’m used to. Perhaps switching from a comfortable hotelbed to an air mattress in the back of the car just takes a bit of an adjustment. Also, it’s raining again and even though it’s a nice sound to hear it tick on the roof, all with all I have a hard time falling asleep. Eventually I succeed and sleep okay with waking up a few times. I hope I’ll get more used to the sleeping in the car again in the coming days.
