It’s a cloudy day here outside of Goblin Valley State Park.  We overnighted in this short little canyon:

I climbed to the top of the canyon wall, where I could see Goblin Valley to the south.  It’s also the only place around here that the phone seems to work:

B has started creating flower photos:

We drove into Goblin Valley State Park.  The park is known for its interesting hoodoos, which are called goblins here:

This area is composed of alternating layers of sandstone and siltstone.  The toadstool shape occurs because the softer siltstone of the “stem” erodes more quickly than he harder cap of sandstone:

The siltstone is very soft:

The kids received their junior ranger badges:

Not a bad view from the parking lot:

We unhitched and drove a few miles west to the trailhead for Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon.  The canyon starts out normally enough:

Interesting textures:

At the fork in the canyon, we decided to go up Little Wild Horse Canyon first:

Eventually the canyon became water filled, so we had to climb the walls to avoid the water:

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On the way down we spotted a wriggling Horsehair Worm.  In its larval stage, it gets eaten by a host animal like a cricket, then burrows out of the host’s stomach into the animal’s organ cavity and grows into a worm several inches long.  When ready to emerge from the host, it emits neurotransmitters that convince the host to jump into water (and usually drown) so that the worm can emerge into the water and swim away:

Here a harder layer of sandstone emerges from the canyon wall:

We hiked back down to the fork and hiked up Bell Canyon.  We pretty soon ran into deep pools:

M got into trouble here as the walls were almost too wide for him to wedge himself between the walls.  He narrowly escaped getting really wet:

Heading out:

We left Goblin Valley State Park, driving north, east, and south back to Hanksville, where we used the grocery store’s WiFi:

We visited the Wolverton Mill in Hanksville.  The mill is unique in that the waterwheel drives a gold ore crusher, an arrastra, and a saw for milling wood, all via a complex array of belts:

The arrastra:

Today we overnighted at a gas station on the east side of town.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.