We didn’t have too long of a drive Sunday morning to get to our next Rock Tour destination – Capitol Reef National Park. But the ride certainly was interesting getting there!

We did get an early start – when you’re parked in a rest stop, it’s pretty much a get up and go kind of morning!






Are those crazy colors, or what?

Just when I thought I knew what to expect (like more rocks) as we pulled into Capitol Reef NP, the scenery changed to this -

and we driving through orchards and green trees. What?????
This national park is an interesting mix of major geological activity and historic settlements. Now I didn’t know anything about Capitol Reef, did you? The reef refers to “The Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long wrinkle in the earth’s crust known as a monocline, [that] extends from nearby Thousand Lakes Mountain to the Colorado River (now Lake Powell). ” The Capitol part refers to rock formations that someone (on the park naming committee, I suppose) thought looked like the capitol building in Washington, DC.

And historically, this was the home to early Mormon settlers who had a small but thriving community here. They planted orchards, grew vegetables, and helped develop transportation routes through the “fold”. There are only a few buildings left, but many of the orchards are still intact, and producing!

In fact, our campground was right in the midst of one of them!
.
We started out with the scenic drive, took in a couple of hikes, and then I tried very hard to “catch” the sunset.




How crazy are those striped rocks?
Our main hike was to The Tanks – natural basins that collect rain water. The hike started town Capitol Gorge Wash

and then climbed to the tanks -


Gary did a little extra exploring and found two more tanks, and a natural bridge.

Very cool.
Another high point along this narrow canyon trail is the “Pioneer Register”. Now that is acutally just another name for old graffiti – but as they, perspective is everything!

Those names were really quite high -

and we were duly impressed!
Others were definitely a little less neatly recorded!


And the cursive – now that was impressive!

But the drive continued…..



We did find some additional graffiti – again, this was pretty special stuff (and trust me, we had lots of help finding it!)

And then there was the sunset adventure. Seems that even though the sunset was at 8:15, when you are driving through these big rocks, it actually happens much earlier. SO, while I didn’t get any shots of the sun actually setting, I did enjoy the beautiful light of the setting sun on the west facing rocks-



But for all of my mad dash down the scenic highway to capture that sunset, I think my favorite shot was right as I got out of the truck back at the campground -

So even though Capitol Reef might not be one of the Big Parks (like the Grand Canyon or Bryce), it still was a good stop. There were lots of great hiking trails and enough history thrown is so we weren’t O-D-ing on rocks!
And speaking of history -
Since today was mainly a travel day (and we even managed to travel through those snowy mountains!), after we got settled in our campground we decided to check out a national monument that had NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCKS. Yep, it was quite the nice change of pace.
Let me introduce you to the Pipe Spring National Monument, located back in Arizona on the Paiute Indian Reservation. This was originally a fort-home for a Mormon Tithe Farm. (Well, originally it was the homeland of the Paiutes, but the main focus here was the working farm.) There was an interesting guided tour of the house and a self guided tour of the grounds. I think this is a pretty new joint endeavor for the Paiutes and the Federal Government and we found it totally interesting!

Tomorrow we are meeting up with some SOWER friends we haven’t seen in several years at Zion National Park. We’re excited about the park (we’ve heard really great things about this park), and we’re excited about seeing these dear friends. The friend connection was an unexpected blessing!
But now, I have to get some sleep! I sense there is hiking in my near future!

We pulled out of our campground at the Grand Canyon on Monday morning, but there was still plenty to see in the GC. Since we were heading out the East Entrance there were still plenty of overlooks to take our breath away!



We stopped at the Watchtower at the east end of the park. Although this tower looks like it’s been around for hundreds or years, it was built in 1932 by Fred Harvey in the early days of the park. There is a lot of information about the Native Americans that lived in the canyon, but it really started out as just a tourist gimmick.

And the guys repointing the stone are definately NOT historic!
By the time we left the park we felt that with the exception of not doing any hiking IN the canyon, we really had “done” the Grand Canyon. What a great 2 1/2 days!
We took a little detour (leaving Lizzie in a friendly visitor center parking lot) south toward Flagstaff to check out a couple of other National Monuments.
Sunset Crater -
This was a pretty recent volcano (like 800 years ago), and it was interesting just driving through the lava and ash fields.



The loop road that drove through the crater area took us right into
Wupatki National Monument where I enjoyed exploring some very well preserved pueblos.

Gary opted not to take the walk to the ruins, but cheered me on from his vantage point!

We covered a fair bit of road on Monday (counting our little side trip) – and as always, the scenery was as varied as it was beautiful!




That little community held our parking spot for the night – the back lot of a Burger King – and our fist glimps of Monument Valley – our major stop for Tuesday.
Stay tuned……

I was a little brief in my first Grand Canyon post, and I’m sure you wanted to know more.
Right? Right?
Being a totally East Coast girl who never even made it past the Mississippi until I was in my 50′s, I had no idea all there was to see and do at the Grand Canyon. I mean, I knew it was GRAND and all, and that we certainly didn’t want to leave Arizona without getting there, I really didn’t know what we would do for our two full days there. Silly me.
First of all, there is hiking. I mean serious-way-down-into-the canyon hiking. There is the Kaibab Trail -

Can you see the switchbacks on the side of that cliff?


See that little patch of green in the valley about a third of the way up in the middle on this picture? That’s Phantom Ranch – and it’s one of the destinations of the many hikes into the canyon.
The other popular hike is the Bright Angel Hike -


and there it goes wandering through the valley

also heading to Phantom Ranch.
But as much as we thought going down part of the way on either of those trails might be fun, we knew that coming back up would be a problem. So instead we did the Rim Trail.

Mostly paved, mostly flat, scenic overlooks a plenty…..yes, definitely our type of “hiking”. We did it from end to end (about 13 miles) and walked a good ten of those miles. For the other spots, we used the free shuttle – a wonderful part of the park! We never even unhooked the truck from behind the RV! It was great!

Then there are the famous mule rides down the canyon (they go on that Bright Angel Trail, I think).

But from the looks of the ones waiting for riders

I think I’m Ok with not doing THAT activity. Don’t want those mules dozing off on those switchbacks!
Our hike along the rim afforded us stunning view after stunning view.



Oh, and if you couldn’t figure it out -

there is danger in dem dar edges. Got it!
Most folks take pictures of themselves standing in front of the Grand Canyon. We did too. But it turned out fuzzy. Besides, I liked this one better!

(and as a bonus I could sell it as a “how not to have your jeans fit” example to a fashion magazine!)
And while the vistas were amazing -

a closer look into the canyon floor revealed more beautiful colors.

Towards the end of our second day we checked out Grand Canyon Village – Hotels and cabins and restaurants and even an art gallery -

that was in the Kolb Studio, built in 1904 right on the rim.

Now THAT’s a room with a view!
We had a very full two days and enjoyed every minute of it (well, maybe we didn’t enjoy the getting up at 4:30 today and then NOT being able to get to the canyon for the sunrise). Tomorrow we pull out of our nice little campground. But I’d better warn you – there are three scenic outlook/stops on the way east out of the park. I don’t think you’ve seen the last of the Grand Canyon from this girl!
One final note from our Rim Trail Hike -
At the very end of the Rim Trail was Hermit’s Rest.

And much to my delight, there on one of the pillars, overlooking the magnificence of the Grand Canyon was this plaque -

Amen.

Last night’s sunset was lovely. I suppose I’ve seen prettier sunset skies, but the fading light made wonderful shadows and highlighted the colors of the canyon.

I’m not sure how that fellow in the bottom left corner actually made it to that rock, but he certainly did have quite the solitude view!

Looking toward the setting sun gave layers of gray – beauty in it’s own way.

And when the sun finally sank behind the horizon (and since we had to wait about 45 minutes (due to shuttle bus schedules) and it was pretty darn cold, I can really use the word “finally”), the grays turned to soft orange/red!

We welcomed the warm shuttle bus with gladness, but we were very happy (Well, I was anyway. Gary maybe not so much) that we made the trip.

This morning’s sunrise? Well, that didn’t work out so well. We were up and at the shuttle stop by 4:45 (leaving us an hour to get to an overlook by sunrise @ 5:45). However, the bus didn’t arrive until about 5:15 and the driver thankfully said that there was very little chance to get to an overlook before the sunrise. And we know, the sunrise waits for no one. We came back to the house, drank our coffee in warmth, and enjoyed a beautiful Sunday morning. Just not one overlooking the Grand Canyon!