After a very hot, restless night, I awoke to darkness, groggy from just waking up and ready to go back to sleep seeing darkness in my half opened eyes, I shifted in my sleeping bag and realized I had again put my head underneath it and the day had, in fact arrived, sunny and bright. Since arriving in Utah and having the daylight savings time change, I’ve been spending hours trying to get to sleep, waking up frequently through the night, then awaking after 9:00 am or even as late as 10:00 am with my head under the sleeping bag, my subconscious mind having me bury under it for warmth and for a little extra nighttime. I was up around 9:30, then slowly got ready, waiting for the other cars and RV that had parked there to leave before I emerged, embarrassed to have gotten such a late start. We then started our hike of Little Wild Horse Canyon, another slot canyon. Many families with young kids were doing the trail as it was only a 6 mile round trip (or 8 mile loop through Bell Canyon), however there were some areas of the hike that must have been quite difficult with all the children, I had to help Luna several times, although she did impress me a lot with her rock climbing and high jumping skills. At the start of the slot canyon is a boulder barrier that can be fairly easily skirted by climbing up along the rock wall at the side (at this stage in the canyon it was still a small, angled wall); I was content to walk along the narrow ledge, but Luna did not want to be that close to the edge, wanting to turn around, instead I directed her up further along the wall where she had to crawl for several yards up a slope under an overhang, I was very impressed with how well she did with that. Luna ran up ahead of us to meet the German Wire-haired Griffon and I was surprised to see the two stop a foot away from each other and stare at each other, I believe I have only seen this behaviour in her once with Jesse, when we were in Texas; I was even more surprised when Luna won as the other dog looked away, Luna had gained dominance over this larger, slightly older dog, crazy! The staring contest was broken, I relaxed and they greeted each other, Luna made some playful moves, but the other dog was not interested, trotting back to meet his family. Most dogs on the trail were off-leash and I am fairly certain BLM land is off-leash dog friendly, so I had let Luna off-leash for the duration of the hike, unless we came across leashed dogs. The slot canyon quickly narrowed so much that at one point I could not even place an entire foot down, I was walking along on the edge of my feet, fortunately it widens as the rock walls go up, so fitting my body was no trouble. The only awkward part was when I met a group of 3 guys my age on my way back in one of the narrower sections, one guy decided they all ought to climb up the wall somehow, but I thought that was quite silly that 3 climb up the wall rather than one, particularly as there was only one place that was slightly climbable, I I climbed up and out of the way, thankful we had not met in the area that I just described.
It was a lovely hike, I enjoyed watching Luna confidently jumping up great heights or scrambling up a steep rock face. Occasionally when we hike in areas with lots of natural barriers and she is feeling particularly confident and accomplished, Luna will go to a section we do not actually have to climb over as there is a better route around and she will walk around that area and stop, looking up and I can see the gears turning in her head as she works out how best to get over the barrier, she did that once today and it was so endearing, she looked so happy as she worked out her challenge. There were 4 families I spoke to initially on the hike, 2 sets of parents with one son, then 2 sets of parents with huge groups of daughters, perhaps 5 each, I had decided that everyone wants sons around here when I met two separate couples with one daughter each, too bad, it was a funny thought beforehand. One huge family of girls greeted Luna, who was slightly ahead of me with oohs and ahhhhs and “She’s so cute!”, as I got closer, the mom, also commenting on Luna and laughing at all the admiration, told me “You’re cute too, but…” the rest of her comment was lost in all the chatter from her daughters. Luna went to greet them with her nervous smile that is adorable, but is from quite an anxiety when she really feels the need to appease someone she does not know particularly well or see often or at all, generally people with high energy levels or that she can tell are upset or excited.
After reaching the end of the slot canyon, I walked on a little farther before deciding to not carry on in to Bell Canyon due to the strong exposure to the sun now that we were out of the shaded slot, plus, I wanted to enjoy my final slot canyon of the trip a little longer, but mostly I had not carried enough water on me to walk 5 more miles in the direct sunlight. The 6 or so miles took 2 1/2 hours with stops to chat, navigate obstacles and take photo and water breaks, I have deduced that I travel about 3 miles/hour in cooler temperatures with only one water break and 2 miles an hour in heat with frequent photo and water stops. Storm clouds started to drift across the sky and the wind had gained strength again as I exited the slot canyon. I was disconcerted to see people, including families with young kids entering the canyon with storm clouds overhead, one should never be in a slot canyon with a storm brewing, the risk of flash flooding is too high and there is little escape with the high, steep canyon walls.
Upon arriving back at the parking lot, we drove back to the main road and headed the hour and a half East towards Moab, rain beginning to patter lightly on my windshield. Arriving in Moab, I found it incredibly crowded, my mom later told me that there is some Moab Easter Jeep Safari event going on, which explains the huge amount of Jeeps in the area. My first stop was the visitors centre to find a campsite with showers and laundry services, I had expected the area to be full of them and I was right, however I did not realize it would be so difficult to find one with vacancy! I stopped at 3 separate RV campsites and drove by several others, all of which were full at 3:00 in the afternoon. At the third one I asked the elderly woman who ran the place if I might be able to just pay for a site and park somewhere on the property, thankfully, she agreed and I payed my $15 and parked in the trailer storage area across from the office. It is on quite a sideways slant, so not too ideal, but it’s a place to sleep and it has laundry and showers. Campsite booked, I went to buy a few groceries, quickly regretting my decision with how packed it was in the store. Maneuvering my cart around with the expertise of navigating crowds that being in a huge high school with 2 000 peers and classes on the third floor on one end of the school and the basement at the other end with 5 minutes to get through the crowds gave me, I zipped around the store, seeing openings where other people would take precious seconds to get through and I could get through quickly while they thought about it and casually walked forward. As I made one easy maneuver, I caught the sounds of the people I had just passed between talking “Wow” the woman said “She’s in a hurry” the man across from her replied, my face burned, they made it sound as if I was being silly about how I navigated around, my mind immediately went to “Of course I’m in a hurry trying to get away from you stupid people who can’t navigate a crowd worth crap”, but I quickly tried to banish that thought as I have been working on my defensive thinking, instead I just thought “Who cares, I know I’m not doing anything wrong” and finished up as quickly as I could. The traffic in the small town was busy and impatient as I drove back to my campsite and I was thankful to arrive back to my home for the night. I took some time to deflate, then gathered my laundry and headed to the showers. I was so grubby from several days of not showering and from my sand-bath the day before from the high winds in the sandy desert, I could run my nail over my scalp and come away with a finger full of sand. My first quarter that lasted 5 minutes ended just as I was scrubbing my face, leaving me with little vision as I felt around for another quarter and tried to see through my soapy, stinging, blurred eyes where the slot was. Happily clean and dressed in my short shorts (my only clean pants as I only really wear them when necessary, having bought them for the purpose of swim shorts as they are such a good fabric for it), rain jacket and broken flip flops, I felt awkward walking outside, hoping no one could see me and my half tan, half pure white legs. I got my huge load of clothes in the wash, then headed back to the car. It was now very cold out with a strong wind and lots of rain. The beautiful mountains were becoming covered by cloud. I had a great chat with Trish, then gathered my laundry and settled in for the night. My back is beginning to ache from the slant I am parked on, I have really come to appreciate flat campsites, they are few and far between, although most only have a slight slope that can run parallel to the car and allows for similar comfort. 
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