We awoke again before our 5:30 alarm and got out of bed. I made instant coffee to go and J started a mug of tea steeping and we left in the Jeep around 5:55. Sunrise is about 6:20.

The sky was clear. :( I had two Clif Bars for breakfast while driving.

We entered Goblin Valley State Park and paid the $7 entrance fee through a self-registration envelope. It was our first time into the park, and we were looking forward to finally making it to the goblins. We stopped to photograph a formation known as the Three Judges with a little color behind it to the east. Then we went to the main parking area that overlooks the goblins. The goblins are small hoodoos eroded from the same entrada sandstone as in Arches National Park. We hiked out into the valley and had a blast photographing the interesting goblins (far left). I ventured to the edge of the goblin valley and photographed some boulders and a spire in the distance (near left).
In addition to photographing the obvious, the goblins and other rock formations, I also photographed some of the Prairie Wild Onion that was blooming, mostly in the washes.

We returned to the Jeep and then drove around the campground to check out the dump station and options for getting water.

We returned to the RV around 10:00, prepped it to move, and left in the RV around 10:15.

We went to a place where we could get a Verizon Wireless signal so we could go online in the comfort of our own home. I worked up a blog entry then had lunch around 11:50. I downloaded the images I took this morning and then downselected them in Capture One (C1). Then I downselected images from earlier this year. We left around 1:50.
We re-entered Goblin Valley State Park and went straight to the dump station. After dumping, we moved the RV to a parking area by the bathroom facilities to borrow a water faucet for one of the campsites to load up the RV. We left around 2:45.

We headed back to our boondocking spot, and there were a lot more people camping in the area than there had been. As if that wasn't bad enough, most of the campers had ATVs or motorcycles — there goes the neighborhood!

We returned to our boondocking spot and were level by 3:20. I continued downselecting images from earlier this year. We had been planning to return to Goblin Valley State Park to photograph in the evening, but the sky was now filled with contrails — terrible for photography. I took a half-hour nap around 5:00.

We had dinner around 6:40 of leftovers: potstickers and fried rice for me and Carino's lasagna for J. I helped J with some of her lasagna and also had a glass of Charles Shaw Merlot.

After dinner, I continued downselecting images from earlier this year. Then I selected and processed three images for the blog. While doing that, I discovered new dust on the 1Ds Mk III sensor so I cleaned it, and it didn't take too many passes to get it clean enough.