Life On The High Way
The Travels and Adventures of the High Family
Day 33 & 34: A travel day and capitol reef national park
Day 33:
We woke up in the OK RV Park and since our drive todady was relatively short, we took it easy and didn’t rush to get out of Moab. Moab is growing rapidly. There is a lot of construction to widen the road and many hotels are currently being built. In a way, I wish we had visited Moab before the construction began, not only to avoid the massive traffic, but also because I think some of the charm of the town was hidden by all the building happening around it. I’m interested to see what Moab looks like in five years.
Our drive was short and simple, which as I keep saying, we do not take for granted. We drove into Hanskville, UT around 2 pm. We started looking at things to do in the afternoon, but decided hanging out at the RV park was the right call. After dinner, there was a little more I Love Lucy and then bed!
Day 34:
I’m posting all the photos of today at the end of the blog. There are too many to disperse through!
This morning really marked the start of vacation as it is the first weekday that Jordan is off of work and the kids aren’t doing school except for a few things here or there. I also received the email about changing the kids learning mode for the second nine weeks this morning. After much discussion, Jordan and I have decided they will go back to in-person school starting October 26. They are so excited and spent half the time in the car today talking about school. I recognize most decisions aren’t permanent so, if this doesn’t work out, we can withdraw them or go back to virtual schooling in January.
This morning as I was getting ready to leave, Lucy said, “Why are we always going to national parks? I just want to play with my Barbies,” and about the same time Hudson asked, “Are we ever going to go to a Target again?” Given those questions, I prepared myself for a day of children complaining, but man, kids can surprise you and today was such an awesome day! We drove about 45 minutes to Capitol Reef National Park. I would encourage everyone to see this park once. To say we were surprised by it is an understatement. We decided to go to Capitol Reef because our plans changed and if we were hitting Arches, Zion, and Bryce, we thought we might as well hit the other two national parks in Utah. Well, I think this place can stand alone. It is that spectacular. I “let” Jordan plan our day because he was off of work and honestly, I wanted a break from all the planning. I think the fact that I didn’t plan or have any idea about where to go or what to do made this day a little more fun for me. We also had perfect weather! Jordan did an awesome job mapping out our day. We stopped at the Visitor’s Center to grab a map, some postcards, and to use the restroom. The restrooms at the Capitol Reef Visitor Center get a gold star for me in cleanliness which is saying something. From there we made our way to the Capitol Gorge Road and Pioneer Register. I want to keep typing that this park is GORGEOUS and it is, but that makes for a boring blog post, so just know… it is GORGEOUS. To get to Capitol Gorge Road, you drive 7.5 miles past the visitor center. Five of these miles are unpaved and 2.5 are not. We saw Volvos and other two-wheel drive cars making the drive, but I’m glad we were in a truck. The drive down to the trailhead was amazing. The kids could not believe we were driving with canyon walls all around us. I couldn’t either. Jordan and I kept saying to each other, “Can you believe this? This place is amazing!” When we reached the trailhead and started walking the path, we were even more amazed. The kids, especially, Hudson, loved climbing, running, and jumping off the canyon walls. There were little pockets of space in the canyon wall (I’m sure there is a more scientific name), that the kids sat in for photos. We saw petroglyphs and the pioneer register. To think some young man made this passage in the 1800s, wrote his name on a canyon wall that is still displayed to this day was incredible to me. We passed the Tanks and kept walking. We walked farther than most people go on this path and that is when canyon opened up a little. We probably had walked about 1.5 miles and knew we needed to get back. We also started this hike at 11 so, once again, it was nearing lunch time. I’m not sure what it is with us and starting hikes near lunch, but as long as we have a snack, the kids do ok. We decided to climb on top of a large rock where we had a 360 degree view to eat our snack before making our way back to the trailhead. Jordan later told me he decided that is where we should turn around because we hadn’t seen any other people for a while. It turns out we made the right decision because about 10 minutes in to our walk back, Lucy started asking when we were going to get to the car.
We ate our picnic lunch at the trailhead before heading off to the Gifford house to buy pies. Pies in a national park? Yes! The Gifford homestead is in the Fruita valley, which is a desert oasis that is fed by the Freemont River. Settlers here grew fruit trees, hence the name, and there are still orchards here to this day. The lushness of the valley against the desert horizon was such a beautiful contrast. The Gifford house operates now as a small museum and store that sells dried fruit, jellies, jams, homemade pies, and ice cream. I was really hoping to get a bite of someone’s pie, but the pies were sold out by the time we got there. The kids and Jordan had ice cream instead. There were some horses nearby the Gifford house so once the kids were done with ice cream, we walked over to look at them. One horse came up to us and let us pet him (her?). I haven’t been around a horse in forever and forgot what magnificent creatures they are. As we were walking back to the car, Lucy said she was asking for a horse for Christmas. I reminded her that we will eventually be moving to Angola and I didn’t think we were able to bring horses with us. She said she was sure we could ask someone and “they would make an exception.”
During this trip, we have learned when our kids are “done,” but we always push them to do one more thing. I’m not sure if that’s good parenting, but as adults, we always want to see and do a little more than they do so we drove to the Goosenecks Overlook to see the canyon. The view down into the canyon was impressive, but the view looking out from the top of the canyon was even better. I know I’ve said it before but, I don’t know why more people don’t talk about Capitol Reef National Park. If the kids hadn’t been with us, Jordan and I would have taken some more hikes, but it was late afternoon at this point so we headed back home. Jordan edited his photos (it was the first time we took out the “big” camera), I did laundry, and Hudson and Lucy played for an hour or so before dinner. After dinner, we played a rousing game of Go Fish, before we headed in for the night.
Today was one of my favorite days of our trip. I’m sure not having to deal with Zoom calls and the like helped, but the beauty of this park, the perfect weather and the fun we had as a family made this day as one that will stand out to me when I look back on our adventure. On the drive home, Hudson began ranking the parks we have seen so far. He gave Capitol Reef the highest score out of all of them so far with a 9 out of 10. In short, if you are in Utah and are able to do so – go to Capitol Reef!
Life On The High Way 
Capitol Reef was one of our favorites also. Zion will be an eye opener, too. As we drove through these parks I kept saying, “if someone is not a Believer, they need to come see God’s hand in these canyons”. Can’t wait to hear how you compare Utah to Grand Canyon. To me, Utah canyons are sheer beauty, while Grand Canyon is sheer size!
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