We woke up, had breakfast and headed down the road . . . Back into the desert. We made an unplanned stop at a store called The Flute Shop outside of Torrey, UT. It was a great stop for the kids. Gage got a knife and Ruth got a beautiful wooden flute made by the owner of the store.
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| A great stop in Torrey, UT |
Our route to Moab took us through Capitol Reef National Park. We’d never been there but had heard good things about the park. And, boy were they right. It’s a really unusual park - both the natural beauty and the history are very important. The Fremont River formed this amazing canyon, leaving lush fertile soil at the bottom. Mormon pioneers moved into the area and created a very small community that they called Fruita. There were families living in the area until the mid-1950’s. There are orchards everywhere and the heritage society raises money by canning produce grown in the park and making pies from the fruit. We had some blackberry pie after our lunch and then took a hike up a dry river bed and while the footing was easier (sand instead of boulders), there is something to be said for hiking in a river . . . It’s much cooler than hiking in a dry wash.
The goal of the hike was to see some Fremont indian petroglyphs and a pioneer register where people passing by on their way through the region would write their names and the date on the sandstone walls of the canyon. Sadly, there has been a lot of graffiti at the site so some of the names were hard to read because of the other writing on top of it but it was fascinating walking through there and imagining their journey.
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| Capitol Reef National Park -- a new favorite! |
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Dramatic cliffs at Capitol Reef NP
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| At the end of the drive, we got ready to hike. |
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| Hiking up another slot canyon . . . this one was dry! |
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| Can you imagine how much water this can hold in a flash flood? |
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| Hiking up the slot canyon . . . hot and dry! |
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| That rock dangles over the road! Yikes! |
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| Gage discovers the joys of photobombing his mother . . . oh happy day! |
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| Pictographs at Capitol Reef NP |
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A sun symbol
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Local residents carved this about 50' up the cliff face
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| Looking up at the list of names |
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| Gravel bottom . . . easier hiking than the boulders in The Narrows |
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| The orchards are green and lush. There was a sign that said, "Don't feed the deer!" |
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| It is a beautiful park. |
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| The geology at Capitol Reef is fascinating and readily seen throughout the park. |
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| Fremont Indian symbols on the way out of Capitol Reef |
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| Love the Big Horn Sheep image |
When we were done, we headed on our way to Moab, seeing more beauty in Capitol Reef on our way out. (We would definitely go back and spend more time there!) The desert along Highway 70 in eastern Utah is drab and boring. We thought about stopping at Green River, UT but it seems to be a dying town and we decided to push on to Moab.
Once you turn off 70, the terrain gets much more interesting and we were glad we made that choice. We ended up staying at a private campground south of Moab. We had a great dinner in Moab at The Blu Pig -- a bbq and blues resturant. Delish! The showers that night felt SO good and I got our week’s worth of laundry done!
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