Day 14: Capitol Reef

We had an hour drive ahead of us, so we woke up earlier and got on the road at 7 a.m. The high today was predicted to hit 90, so we needed to do our exploring early. Rob now has a sore throat, too, but we’re hopeful everyone will start feeling 100% again soon.

We started with the hardest hike for the day: Hickman Bridge Trail. It was a 2-mile trail to a natural arch. On this trail we saw cool black lava rocks that had fallen down from the top shelf of the mountain and were rounded by the glacier movement many years ago. After walking away from the arch, we crossed paths with a snake, but saw no rattle so we stood and watched it for a little (we later learned it was a gopher snake). The boys were both eager to try out wearing our hiking backpack, which I was happy to share.

Next we hit the visitor center to pick up the junior ranger packet and the collectible tokens we are trying to gather from all the national parks. The boys were thrilled to learn that the parents, rather than the rangers, are responsible for giving the badges to the kids, so they wouldn’t have a ranger checking their work. Funny enough as they had it all finished before we left the park, and both said how much fun it was to complete this one.

After the visitor center, we did two shorter hikes: of Goosenecks and Sunset Point. Nicholas found some caves to climb in, and we all enjoyed the views.

Next on the agenda was to head into Fruita to pick some apricots from their orchards. We all loved this activity, and the boys tried their first apricots. Cooper liked the more tart ones, and they both loved trying to swipe them out of the trees from the ladders with the scoops. It was the last day the orchard was going to be open, so we had to hunt hard to find enough apricots for us each to try one.

Once we each had an apricot we walked next door to find a shady tree for a picnic lunch. I love picnic lunches. We saw an elk and another orchard from our blanket. Once we wrapped up lunch we headed to the other orchard were we were able to get a handful of apricots.

Fruita is also known for the Gifford House, which sells pies. How could we resist checking it out ourselves? Last season they sold over 30,000 pies (even during COVID). We enjoyed a cherry (Nicholas’ pick) and mixed berry (Cooper’s pick) at the house and bought an apple one to share over dinner tonight.

Trying to cram one more thing in, we decided to do the 15 mile round trip scenic drive. It was beautiful, but we were also done and excited to start heading home. Rob kindly took over and drove us back out of there.

The last hike of the day was a quick 0.3 mile out and back at the Capitol Reef Petroglyph Trail. So cool to see the carvings still on the wall after so much time has passed. It has been hard to express to the kids how difficult the early natives and pioneers had it, but they are slowly starting to understand it better.

While at the Petroglyph trail a person said the “hole in the hill” gas station was a must see when in Hanksville. This is the town we have been staying in, so we checked it out before coming back to the RV for the evening.

Rob and I have realized this is the longest we have been away from a larger town, likely ever. The lack of grocery options has given us the opportunity to get creative with meals. A less than stellar example would be making knock-off brand mac and cheese with just water and butter, since we didn’t have milk. The fresh produce has been pretty limited, but Rob has managed to come back with a couple of treasures from the local market.

We definitely picked the wrong night to eat out last night. Tonight it was 90 degrees in the RV, and I got to cook chicken on the stove making it even hotter in there. Oops–next time we need to look at the future weather and avoid heating up the RV even more on these really hot days. Guess we were just making up for not being at home during the recent heat wave there.