Utah Trip part 2: September 3 - September 10
September 3: Got to relax
We spent the day mostly at my parents relaxing and enjoying the garden and outdoors. I did see a few people that I knew at church and found out a friend of mine was getting married. I'll have to send a card to Allen, granted I don't think he ever forgave me for getting married and moving away. Who knows. It was nice to spend some time outdoors.
I really did enjoy my time just relaxing. We did get to see Lindsay, Jeff and Kyle again. We also had another fresh peach cobbler in the dutch oven. It was very good. I find at times that I miss those small things like that.
September 4: Devil's Garden and Lava Beds
It was another nice morning and we got ready to head out to see the Lava beds and an area called Devil's Garden. It is not really well known other than for those that know about it. It is a small area in the BLM lands. This is a nice ridge that is covered in petroglyphs. They date them back to the time of Lake Bonneville. So they have so they are kinda dated.
There is not just one era of petroglyph in this area. There are many types. My question is why on earth did they want to do this on a lava bed. The rock is really hard. I would not have wanted to do it. Click here for a big pictures of the lava wall. It is just covered with hundreds of petroglyphs. It is fun to just
wander through them and look. Because it is lava rock you don't really want to be near them to close to mid day. It can get kinda hot. Also there is the snake factor as well. You have to watch out for little them in hiding in holes and other areas.
We spent two hours wandering through the area. We went in and around the area. It was rather fun. I went out there ages ago, but had not been there in a while. Some of the area was searching for things that I remembered seeing. It was not a totally hot day but it was nice to get out and just do some walking.
Dominguez-Escalante Trail also went through this area. In the journal they make that they made camp about 3 miles form this area near Pahvant Butte. You can see Pahvant Butte in the picture to the left. In the picture to the right you can see a mark left by the Dominguez-Escalante party.
That night for dinner we went to Big Rock Candy Mountain. It is far out of the way of just about everything, but they have some really good food. I really do like to go there. It was nice to have some relaxing time and just enjoy not having to cook or do anything.
After we got back it was packing time for the trip to Capitol Reef National Park.
September 5: Capitol Reef National Park - Oyster Shell Reef
We headed out to Capitol Reef in the morning with one small stop in Richfield so that we could get Paul some new boots. His old boots finally gave up the ghost. It was a nice drive over to there. We got to Torrey and checked into our hotel to find out rates were not what they told me. I was not happy about that. We then headed to the Visitor Center.
We had originally thought we would drive through upper Cathedral Valley, but it was moderate flood warning and that is not a fun drive when it is wet. It was a small stop So we headed to the Notom-Bullfrog road. We went looking for the Oyster Shell Reef. It is a very interesting layer of petrified oyster shells. It was an interesting time looking for them. But we did eventually find them.
We had dinner at a place we had eaten before and head back to the hotel to rest and get ready for the hike. It was an interesting night since we don't normally have Rose sleeping in the same room as us.
I was looking forward to the next day, nervous but it was kinda fun to look forward to.
September 6: Capitol Reef NP - Navajo Knobs
The continental breakfast they provided was waffles and orange juice, and nothing else. I don't consider that much of a continental breakfast. It was not the best food we could have got. I stretched out really good and tried to get mentally ready to go. We got on our way to drive to the hike about 8am. Paul and I (minus Rose) headed onto the trail at 8:30 am. It was great to be on the trail. It was something I had worked for. I was worried how well I would do.
It at least was a cloudy day. The hike is very much exposed with no real shade during the hike. We got hiking higher and I could remember doing the hike before. We started up it once when we were out there the last time. I was a nice tug on the lung and I could feel the hike in my legs. I was glad at that time I had spent so much time with Rose in the backpack carrier. It really helped out. We made a brief stop at the place we made the last time. And they moved forward. We reached
the half way point and looked on towards more trail. It was an odd trail. You went up and then slightly down and then back up steep again. On the way up it did rain a few minutes. What my parents refer to as 12 inch rain. One rain drop every 12 inches. This was more like 3 inch rain. :)
The view of the park from the trail were great! It was just wonderful. We took time at a few spots to just let the view sink in. The last half of the trail they say is the harder part. Some of it was not really all that hard. The last 30 feet was an interesting part of the hike. The view from on top of the Knobs was great. It was a 360 view that was wonderful.
Up until about noon time we had not seen another soul. We only saw 5 people total on the trail. It was nice to have the alone time and peace that we don't often get at home. The hike out took just as long as the hike in, but we did take about 45 minutes to take a small bit to eat. It was 6 hours in total. It was amazing and I hope to do the hike again some day.
And what do you see in this picture?
After the hike we headed back and cleaned up from all the grim of the day. We had a nice dinner and then relaxed.
September 7: Drive back to Fillmore
We got up the next day with small intentions of maybe hiking the Golden Throne, but with the high flood warnings. That was a nope, not going to happen. I was sore from the day before. The 9 miles really took it out of me. We did stop at the Visitor Center and the History Home in the area. I bought a small item there to support the historic area they have been restoring.
We then headed off to Fillmore, we went by way of Fish Lake and on the way over we got hailed on. It was cold and the road was very slushy. It was kinda fun to see. We got to see a few of the leaves that were starting to change. The clouds covered most of the mountains so we could not see as much as I would have like to have seen.
It has been a long time since I was on Fish lake and it was not for an ice fishing trip. It was nice to see it all green instead of white.
September 8-9: Relaxing
We spent the next two days relaxing and just enjoying a break. We did spend some time outside. On Saturday we went to see what they had at the Old Capitol days. But there was not anything impressive. We packed up and got ready to head home.
September 10: The flight home
We got up and drove to SLC. I did try and sleep some. I don't think I slept to well the night before. The flight originally was going to be a direct flight back, but because of England and liquids and not enough people on the flight they canceled it and we had to take two planes back. UGH not really that much fun. It took longer to take off from Utah than expected. Something about bad storms in the way.
Once we landed in Cinn. We got on our next plane and got to Hartford. Our plane came in at 10:30pm and it should have got there at 9:30pm. One of the suitcases feet were gone. I guess that was to be expected. It was late we headed home. When we got home we found out that one of our fuzzies had used the leather couch as a littler box. Not fun to find at all. We cleaned up what we could and headed off to bed. I slept that night without my cpap.
Reading
I finished when Darkness falls and Incubus Dreams and started Raven's Shadow. It did enjoy my free time to read. :)