Salli’s journal recollections day-by-day-ish of our camping trip travelling from Georgia to Colorado – er, Utah… (Tay has officially opted out of journaling at this point)

Anyone still reading these? Comment below if you think I should keep posting, I still have a whole month’s worth of adventures to share!

October 9th – 15th, 2025

After heading out of the first campsite we’d parked at in Moab (due to potential flooding) we looked at a few more sites along the road we’d come in on and opted to keep on searching along the forest service and BLM roads. We noticed that we were very close to a nearby state park, so we decided to see what it was all about before we found our stay for the night. Not really knowing anything about it, we kind of stumbled into one of the most incredible landscapes either of us had ever seen. 

Dead Horse State Park absolutely had us stunned. Some describe it as even better than the Grand Canyon, although I personally haven’t yet seen the Grand Canyon in person to have that opinion. We went inside the visitor’s center to view the small museum of history for the area they had displayed, then walked along the trail that follows the edge of the rim. We could see a road or trail of some sort down at the bottom of the canyon along the river, so we made a mental note to see if it would be of interest to us later on when we decide to unload the motorcycles. 

After seeing the park in full and stopping at every scenic overlook available, we found ourselves driving along Gemini Bridges road in search of a new campsite. Thankfully, this area panned out great for us and we parked on a hill alongside the road with views like no other.

Over the next several days we mostly just had weather to deal with. Waking up to dense fog on the 10th, then on and off rain, Taylor only got to ride his motorcycle a handful of times between the short showers. After mostly just wandering around the area by the campsite, Sunday we’d finally got a good break in the weather for us both to commit to a good day of riding. Finally, we’d get to see what all the talk was about for this famous off-roading landscape. (Or at least a small portion of it.)

The ground felt extremely foreign with the mixture of wet sand, clay, and layers of shelf rock mixed in with other loose gravel. We soon got the hang of it and enjoyed taking in the otherworldly views along the canyons. Stopping at an overlook, we took a moment to send a handful of photos to our parents that we’d taken along the way. Dad’s reply back: “I think I’ve seen that in an old western movie!” Honestly, he probably had. – This also prompted us to see what movies might’ve been featured in the area and other areas we’d been through, which turned out to be a good many! (Queue western movie binge watching)

The next day was another cool rainy day, so we mostly chilled at the camper. I opted to work on the website a bit, backup our thousands of photos taken, then edit some of those to share. We also took this time to see what trails and scenic areas the best of Moab had to offer. We couldn’t wait for the weather to clear up for the riding we had planned! 

When the next morning arrived, we decided it was time for another reset of sorts, so we headed to the public water fill station at Lion’s park, got a full load of groceries, refueled everything, then headed back to the same dispersed camping area we’d been staying at, but in a different spot that we’d scouted out while riding the trails along the road.

After looking through many maps at trails and sites to see, we chose to ride the motorcycles to a nearby parking area that offered a little bit of hiking to an overlook point. Turns out, this was THE Gemini Bridges that the road we’d been staying along was named for. The hike was a fun little scramble with the shelf rock terrain that eventually led to a beautiful canyon view with many lookout spots, along with a glorious bridge/arch that you could walk across. Clumsy as I am, I made sure to be extra careful not to get too close to any of the edges to admire all that was around. 

That afternoon I opted to hang out at the campsite while Taylor explored some of the more difficult trails nearby, as it had started sprinkling rain on and off. Without knowing it, we both took photos of a rainbow that had formed which we noticed from our different location points. Gotta admire the little things, like unexpected rainbows in the desert!

(Sidenote: Anyone remember playing the old MX vs ATV games? We love being unnecessarily immersive in places we go to, so I managed to figure out which version of the game, and which map was the one closest to Moab. We were so giddy riding our digital 2 strokes over arch bridges while split screen on our tiny TV. * It was MX vs ATV Untamed “Copper Valley” if you’d also like that bit of nostalgia..)