An average sleep, interspaced with a toilet trip around four and abruptly ended when we hear the rain around 0730. Quickly we spring into action and get the tent down before the heavens open. What we have to say though, is a piece of wisdom we’ve come by whilst on this trip. If you feel the cold in a tent, or think its going to be a particularly cold night, sleep in a silk liner inside your sleeping bag – the silk does a great job of keeping you warm, regulating your bag temperature really. It keeps your bag clean, you’re less sweaty, and it’s warmer. Top tip!

It would be great if we could find a coffee shop we think as we leave the campsite, but unlikely we guess, it being Sunday morning in a tiny village in Mormon country and barely 0800 … How wrong we are. Not only do we find a coffee to have with our muffins at the “Green River Coffee Co.”, we also find another amusing sign – “Friends stop friends drinking Starbucks” …. !!!

Satisfied we drive on and through “Capitol Reef National Park”, stopping for piccies of an old settlers cabin, some petroglyphs i.e. Indian graffitt, and to pick some apples at “U-Pick in Johnsons Orchard”, trying a few just to check we like them obviously 🙂

Then on to another Boulder, where we pull up at “Hills and Hollows” for fuel and a lunchstop.

We’re still two hours from Bryce, so much for getting to the parks “Sunset Campground” early for a spot….

Not only that but there’s a further unplanned stop in the town of Tropic, but it ain’t the tropics!!! It’s torrential. Pssssing it down! It’s “Clarkes General Store” for coffee and supplies, funnily enough we’re not hurrying to the campsite now!!! The rain stops but still not convinced we have a weather window, we call into a few places with cabins to rent …. Stupid money!! So that’s ruled out … Fingers crossed the campsite isn’t full and that the wet stuff stays away!!!

The campsite as it turns out is really nice and not that full yet … Lots of reserved signs up in empty pitches but still quite a few to choose from. Only issue is working out where the rain will flow if it comes on again – there’s quite a few pitches that look like they’d have rivers running right through the flat bit and your tent if it was there… Eventually after a bit of walking around and estimating the predicament the possibility of rain serves us, we eventually choose a spot and get the tent up.

We have wood for a fire but it must be wetter than usual as it doesn’t burn to well. In fact it takes way over an hour to get coals in a state good enough to cook on. We’re starving, cold and eating in the dark!

It’s a very cold night, so much so that Bernice wakes in the night (or is dreaming, it´s hard to say) saying over and over “I’m cold, I’m cold” … It is to be expected as we are camped at around 8000ft! But we haven’t clothed up for it in the tent. Doh!

In the night the rain comes, its really heavy and Huw has to sort the tent out – close the inner door and roll the mosi door away – as water is coming in. Bernice worries that it’s only a matter of time before we’re flooded out and we need to decamp to the car … But luck is with us and the door switching is enough to keep it out allowing us an ok rest of night sleep 🙂