Day 71, More Whoa!

Our trip today took us through a varied landscape.


The views can be so surprising. I could hardly believe some of them were natural and didn't have some intervention by man.

We wandered down Hwy. 24 for part of our trip through more red rock county to Capitol Reef National Park. I thought that was a curious name since we are far from the Capitol and from the ocean. Apparently, early settlers thought the white dome of Navajo Sandstone resembled the dome of the Capitol building in Washington, DC.

And the 87-mile long ridge that runs through the park was such a barrier to transportation that they likened it to an ocean reef.

One area of the park is the Fruita Historic District. The National Park Service maintains over 2000 fruit trees that were part of an early settler's orchard. We plan to explore more there tomorrow.

I've written before about how far services can be apart. We were happy to have a nearly full tank of gas when we saw this sign.

We are staying at a campground that felt like it was a real find but worried about what we would find. When we decided to take this route home only a month ago, I must have checked on the internet, emailed, or phoned 10-15 places. As one women told me, "The retirees are out." Luckily, Thousand Lakes is a nice park. The sites are closer than you get at a park but the people are nice, the facilities are clean, and there's a BBQ & Grill onsite. Just scan the QR code to order 😊

The National Park Service here has evening programs. We're not too far from the National Park so we joined the Stargazing program this evening. It is amazing how many stars you can see in some of these dark sky parks and how a good pair of binoculars can amplify the number of stars you can see.

For our RV friends: Since we stayed in a campground with no services and no RV dump we needed to find water before we got to the campground and a dump on the way out. Turns out you can get both for free at Maverick gas stations. Of course, we needed to wait in line a good half hour to dump this morning but at least it was close to our campground and we didn't have to carry all that excess weight as we climbed 3,000 feet today.
Location: Capitol Reef, Utah, USA

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