We were just 10 minutes from Capital Reef and the first stop at the park (after coffee in Torrey) was at the Gifford House. They sell small pies that are pie perfection. Bought a cherry and a mixed berry. Lots more about the orchards and pie next week. The park is neat. We drove the scenic road to the end, then along a more or less one lane dirt and sand road another 3 or 4 miles to the parking area for our hike in the Capital Reef Gorge. This was once a road in and out of the settlement and you can still see an occasional pipe inserted into the canyon wall that held a phone line. About 1/2 mile in we arrived at the wall where both indian petroglyphs and settlers added names and dates to their journey thought this pass. We had nice morning here but rain started just as we returned to the car so after a stop at the VC and a second petroglyph site, we headed toward Arches. This is a road with no services, very few signs of any inhabitation for miles. Just high desert and canyons. Beautiful. We arrived in Moab about 3, settled into our hotel, very nice, and explored a bit of the town after an excellent dinner at Pasta Jo’s. Then a trip to Arches to see sunset. It was a bit underwhelming but still nice to be out on a very comfortable night. What was special were the Mammatus clouds and a rainbow. Just too cool.
We will return to Arches in the morning and also a brief stop at Canyonlands National Park.
Rainbow and the forming Mammatus clouds.
Mammatus Cloud
balance rock from this perspective looked more like Nefertiti Egyptian Queen in 14th century BC, according to Jill. It is good that we are renaming all of these formations.
Arches sunset