Capitol Reef...Complete

 We woke up to a beautiful morning with just the tiniest chill in the air. We saw (and heard) that the underneath side of Joon was filthy with caked on mud from the roads we traveled yesterday, so we decided to hit a car wash before doing the park. While out and about yesterday we came across a Visitor's Information Center, we stopped and got maps and booklets, but we also saw in the same parking lot there was a self carwash, so this is where we came back to. We pulled in to air up the tires and get things clean, we also washed our floor mats! 

I saw this sign, it made me giggle! I guess it's a real big problem! haha

Today we are going into Capitol Reef National Park. We looked at the map but once again it doesn't look like there's any (really) long hikes, but maybe I'm just not reading the maps right...?

  

While we were at the entrance sign, we were talking to a real nice couple and one of their little boys was watching this (picture below) go down and finally pointed it out to the rest of us. 

Now that's one way to be part of the food chain, eh!!

We saw about 3 or 4 Artists, painting or sketching the beauty in nature that is all around us.

The waterfalls were gone since there was no rain today, I guess we got lucky seeing them yesterday. Still a beautiful day!

 

We decided to pull over into a few places and take some pictures and maybe even hike a little bit to see stuff. Now you think I would learn from the first hike I did with my flip flops...? Thinking this was a different part of the park (with a flat wood bridge), I wore some flats, more or less like slippers and carried no water. Yep, I said no water.

 The hike wasn't too bad, it seemed like a lot of uphill at first, but once you come up on top, its pretty easy. The only time I had trouble (due to my shoes) was when we were 'climbing' (used very loosely) at awkward angles, they got a little slippery. I promised Jamie that I would wear the right shoes no matter what from now on! 😝

 We saw a sign at the top of the 'big climb' that said 

<--Hickman Bridge  .7

Rim Overlook  2 -->

Navajo Knobs  4.2 -->

Since we had no water, we decided for the .7 to Hickman Bridge. Hickman Bridge is a little treasure, for you have to find it on the backside of a loop! It's cool.

  

I love all of the variations of rock and colors...just nature, period, in this park, it's much different than the other parks.

  

We made it, with silly shoes and no water...now time to get back to the van and get some water!

  

The view is just as great going back as it was hiking to Hickman Bridge!

We met another super nice couple, Andy & Cathy, in the parking area of the Petroglyph's. They travel in a Tiger Motorhome that's been converted from an Astro van chassis. Their rig was sweet, the inside was very roomy...it was pretty neat seeing what could be done with an Astro, it had so much room in it! Turns out that we are doing each others trips backwards; they are on their way to Moab/Canyonlands and we were headed down Scenic Byway 12 after the park.

The Petroglyph's is where the flat wood bridge is...now that I had my Reebok's on! 

The bridge is beautiful, you can walk lazily down it while trees canopy over you, providing shade while different colors dance on the rocks.

 

  

We were both excited to get on Scenic Byway 12 so we didn't do much else in the park. I believe Scenic Drive (in the park) is a good 8 or 9 miles and we were ready to go drive "The Most Beautiful Road in America"!

PEACE

Leaving Moab to continue our National Park Journey...

The morning of June 11th, we woke up at our BLM camp spot on Yellow Circle Road, which we camped at (I think) 3 times during our stay in and around Moab (15 days). Yellow Circle Road is a few miles outside of Moab, off of Highway 191, and is a great go-to if you're passing through or if you want to be closer to town. We wouldn't use it as a long-term (2 week) spot, we used it kind of like how we use Wal-marts, it's nice and convenient. Here are the coordinates:
GPS: 38.435474, -109.427631

We hit the road around 9-9:30 a.m., heading to the next park...Capitol Reef. The rain danced around us all night with major lightning and thunder storms, it was the first time we had had a rain storm like that, while we slept, since Georgia. I'm so glad Joon doesn't leak!
The rain clouds were still circling around Moab as we drove through town to get on the highway out of town, it looked like hell was about to drop in on Moab! 

 This was the moment that we were both so happy that we busted ass to get out of the Canyonlands spot, for as we looked up the mountain where we were parked, you couldn't even see the mountain tops! All of the mountains were covered in heavy rain mist or blackish grey/blue clouds, we were glad to be leaving!
We had rain the entire drive to Capitol Reef. It was a nice cool drive, but wet and rainy the whole way.  

We drove into the park without even knowing we were actually in the park. This park doesn't have an entrance gate that you pay at, it's just a road that goes through the park...we were wondering if you pay at the Visitor's Center, but since we bought a (N.P annual) pass we weren't too worried about it. I did learn later that you were charged a fee for traveling the park's Scenic Drive beyond the Fruita Campground: $5 for bicyclists/pedestrians & $10 for vehicles, the pass is good for 7 days.

 

  We drove straight through the entire park in about 10 minutes, maybe less, until we hit the small town of Torrey. Surprised that we just drove through the park and didn't even know it, we saw a visitor's information building and decided to stop in to get some maps and all the touristy stuff. We grabbed some great booklets and maps as we talked to the woman running the place, she told us about some roads (Scenic Drive) in the park that were closed due to the rain flooding the roads! 
 We got back in the van and drove another 10 miles or so down the road to see what the town had to offer in ways of groceries and fuel, then headed back toward the park to find a spot to camp for the night.

We had found a place on www.Freecampsites.net but as we drove to it, found it was right off of the main highway, so that was a no-go for us due to wanting privacy and not worrying about the dogs. We drove a couple more miles and found another road that went back into the rocks a little bit, so decided to take it and found about 8 "campsites" or so it seemed with all of the firepits. 

There was absolutely noone else there and was a perfect place for us to stop for the night. I'm not sure what the road name was called but it's easy to find, right off of the main road that leads into the park, from Torrey side. There was no wifi and we didn't check to see if there was any TV since it was going to be dark soon and we were just going to leave in the morning anyway. We pulled out our chairs, had a cocktail and looked over our maps and booklets until it started getting a little dark. It was a beautiful spot!

 More about this part of our N.P. journey in the next post
Until then...
PEACE