Sunday, October 19, 2014

MIGHTY FIVE No. 3 - 10/18/14 . . .


Our destination today . . . Capital Reef National Park. The day of a few wrongs turned out to be oh so right. 


Over the duration of our drive today we were constantly coming in and out of Dixie National Forest. Come to find out this Forest has almost 1.97 million acres of land. The landscape was covered with ponderosa pine that was speckled with aspen just finishing their peak color change! 



Even though we left Bryce NP early, by the time we made a stop for propane, then another stop for diesel fuel this put us at Capital Reef just after lunch Utah time. It meant that the campground at Capital was FULL. Uhhh oh!!!

                   TORREY, UTAH

But not to worry this made us go to Plan B . . . a commercial campground. We knew about nearby Thousand Lakes RV Park because the Airstream Southwest Caravan makes a stop here on their annual journey. Well here we have FULL hook-up and laundry and internet plus cell reception. At Capital Reef we would have had none of the above. We've not had full hook up since Page, Arizona. So this wrong was oh so right. 

OUR FRONT YARD AT THOUSAND LAKES ... Haven't seen grass in weeks!

          OUR VIEW TO THE SOUTH 

Once we disconnected, got settled in and had lunch we headed back to Capital to the visitors center and to take a driving tour of the park. Fabulous place it is. 

                    MORE ROCK!

Here it is like the earth has buckled, this Waterpocket Fold stretches over 100 miles. Again the landscape is the same but oh so different. Inspired by the US Capital ... Capital Dome can be seen from a nearby trailhead. 



At the end of our driving tour we decided to stop in one if the many orchards here in the park. This park maintains one of the largest historic orchards in the National Park Service with almost 3,100 trees. Currently apples are being harvested. It is free to sample while in the orchards but a small fee is charged for fruit taken. (I ate two while in the orchard  :-P ) We brought a bag of apples that we picked back to base camp!



Tim and I had a little help in the orchards with a few new friends. This is actually the first time for Tim to be in an orchard with apples on the trees and the first time picking one and eating it this fresh in the field. Delicious !!!



As the sun was setting we decided to stop on the way back to base camp for dinner. Pizza and beer!!! Well we sat at the bar, ordered ... got our beer, waited and waited - the Notre Dame and FL State game was on. We haven't seen TV in five weeks and were not paying attention to the time. The waitress ... now get this ...she is a combo of Bug from Men in Black and Kramer from Seinfeld ... asks us what food we ordered. Do you remember the marketing campaign a few years ago from MasterCard? Yeah the reaction on her face ... PRICELESS when she realized she hadn't given our pizza order to the kitchen! Oh well more beer to order! Then later she came and apologized for getting us the wrong beer!? Huh? We were confused and clueless. Maybe she was drink'n out back?! But I so could write a movie character about her just from one visit. We might go back again just for the entertainment factor. 


So in the end all the wrongs of the day were oh so right here in Torrey, Utah. 


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