Tuesday, July 8, 2014 – Travel Day to Blackhawk Horse Camp near Payson, UT

Got up just as day was breaking, managed to get on the road by just after 7:00. Thankfully, the drive was uneventful, just long. While the views in Colorado have been pretty great, there's nothing like the terrain in Utah to make one's eyes pop out. Doesn't seem to matter which way you go, there's always something miraculous to see. We crossed every imaginable terrain, and, because the best route was mostly off the freeway, we really got to see some remote places. Finally arrived in Payson at the road that headed up the mountain, and I let Hubby get in front of me, since all indications were there were some pretty tight hairpin turns, and I always like him in front of me letting me know when traffic is coming, in case I have to pull off the road a bit to let them pass. In the end, there were only a few places where passing was difficult, the road entirely paved all the way to the end, including the campground, and it was wide enough almost all the way, except a short stretch about a third of the way up paralleling a creek where it was pretty narrow. As we followed the signs to Loop E (for equestrian), we met up with Paul, the camp manager, and had a nice chat with him. We checked out the campground and finally settled on site 11, one of only three or four sites that I knew didn't have reservations for the upcoming weekend, and set about getting everything set up. According to the reservation webpage, they show that there is only one spigot in the campground, near group site 10, but that's not accurate. Actually, there are spigots every two or three sites. Unfortunately, those spigots have no threads, which presented us with a pretty big problem, how to fill up the RV, particularly since the spigot was downhill from us. Eventually, I managed to work out a solution (which I won't mention, as it might get someone in trouble : -), and by 5:00, we had everything set up. We put up a portable corral around a pretty good size space so the horses had room to move around, got the satellite dish up, and managed to settle down at about our usual time. Paul was even kind enough to let me copy of a couple of his maps so I could make a GPS route for ourselves for when we ride, always a good thing!