Camping at Hovenweep

In 2009, only 37,848 people visited Hovenweep National Monument,
making it the 10th least visited Monument in the National Park
system. If that number increases by two for 2010, Lynn and I
can be thanked because we decided to stop here to camp for the
night on our way home. It's a great little park that has a lot of
different Anasazi (Ancient Puebloan) structures, stradeling the
Utah/Colorado border.


Even though we pulled into the small campground at around
5:30, we found a pretty nice little spot, overlooking a nearby
canyon, and Ute Mountain, far to the east. Unlike the past two
nights at Chaco, there was no wind, and the temperatures were
relatively warm.


Apparently, it takes very little to make us happy and we
discovered that we were going to be the first to use the
fire pit that had recently been installed at our site. It
performed like a champ!


Because the weather was so nice, there weren't any clouds, and
we were able to get a spectacular showing of stars. Probably the
best display we've seen since we last wintered on the Ice a few
years ago. The moon was just a sliver in the sky, certainly helping
our view.