More of the Mighty Five!

9/9:

We were pleasantly surprised to get up this morning and NOT see rainy skies - despite the weather forecast, the sun did its best to come out and we didn't get rained on a single time all day.

First order of business was to go to some of the overlooks that we missed yesterday due to time constraints. This, of course, presented more opportunities for gratuitous pictures of my car. Fortunately for you all, I've narrowed it down to just a couple of shots:

And of course I took a few shots of Capitol Reef itself, because I was there to see it after all. Really wish it had been a bit more sunny to light up the rocks a little better, as my pictures absolutely don't do them justice. Very, very cool uplifted/folded outcrop!

After making a quick stop at the visitor's center (for an ornament and a sticker, of course) we went on to do a quick hike to a really cool valley overlook from Cohab Canyon. The overcast weather ended up being a boon because it kept us cool on a steep ascent to the top of a cliff. The trip through the canyon leading to the overlook was awesome with lots of interesting sandstone formations:

Solution cavities! Otherwise known as "holy rocks!"

Canyon was totally filled with the cavities, cross bedding, and all kinds of interesting melty-looking structures from chemical weathering

After the hike there was no ice cream to be found, so instead we got some pies from the local pie shop down in the Fruita orchards (which are a part of the park). The orchards were planted by settlers a long time back and have been maintained by the park service so that visitors can still pick fruit from them. So after pies, we went to the nearest open orchard and picked some fruit. The deal is that anything you eat inside the orchard is free, but anything additional you take out is $1.25/lb. Totally reasonable! I had a delicious pear and was very happy for it. Fruit is not something that's been high on my eating list for the past few weeks as it tends to go bad in the cooler before I get a chance to eat it.

Coming back from the orchard I saw that Jane had more admirers:

My favorite is when people are so engrossed in the car that they don't notice me taking pictures of them, even when I'm only 10 feet away.

Once they had been spoken to, we headed off to the next stop: a wall of petroglyphs! This place was SERIOUSLY cool. Most petroglyphs are very faint or very small or very simple. But not these ones - they consisted of some pretty good sheep carvings and several 18-inch-tall carved people!

There were more petroglyphs along the walk, but unfortunately I didn't get great pictures of them. So you all will just have to go visit them for yourselves!

From there we unfortunately had to leave to continue on to Moab. I'd definitely like to come back here to spend some more time looking around the park. But with the weather being a little less than optimal (though still not bad by any means, to be fair), heading on was not a terrible thing. And we had to make sure to leave early enough that we would get to Moab in time for sunset at Arches.

I could never be bored driving through southern Utah

On the highway into Moab

I've always wondered how many people actually pronounce "Moab" correctly the first time they visit. Because really if I didn't know better, instead of saying "moe-ahb", I'd just say "mohb" which of course would be very silly. I'm sure gift shop clerks get a good laugh out of that several times a day.

Anyways, we arrived at Arches just in time for sunset - and a large rain storm, unfortunately. I opted to leave Jane down in the Visitor Center parking lot so that my parents and I wouldn't have issues trying to find parking for two cars. I really regretted that, as the rain cleared everyone out and then the park after the storm was absolutely incredible. I should have known better anyways - where I go, Jane goes.

Regardless, the scenery was quite spectacular, even more so because there were not a million people there. We had time to see a few big landmarks before the sunset:

Balanced rock, balancing and stuff

Scenery from inside Double Arch!

Double Arch, one of the coolest things to see at Arches

The sunset was amazing - a true southwestern affair complete with incredible colors, cool rock silhouettes, and brilliant sunbeams. We even got a rainbow in the deal!

With that we headed back down to get Jane, who was looking very forlorn in the empty parking lot. Not making that mistake again! We headed into town and managed to get pizza at Paradox Pizza before they closed for the night. Absolutely delicious. Then Jane and I took a little off-roading trip in our attempt to get out of the parking lot. There's really no excuse other than poor visibility and even poorer driving skills, so I'll just say it: we may have jumped down a pretty substantial curb. Fortunately I didn't rip off the exhaust system or even rip off the oil pan - in fact, there was no damage except for a hose forcibly removed from a vent valve (easily ziptied back on). 5 stars for that! Still, not something I would like to do again.

Tomorrow we're going to head to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands, both of which are reputably pretty incredible (though probably not as incredible as Arches). We'll return to Arches for some more hikes and overlooks in a couple of days - so you haven't seen the last of that incredible park. Kelly signing out!