Capital Reef National Park

The next morning I got up fairly early and started my drive along scenic byway 12 on my way up to Captial Reef National Park.  It is a winding road full of diverse and rugged landscape.  I always find it interesting to see the different shapes that come from the erosion and I wasn’t disappointed.  I saw many different textures, colors, and landscapes on my drive up to Capital Reef.  I stopped at the visitor center when I got to the park to figure out where to go hiking and was a little disappointed when I found out a couple of places I really wanted to get to were washed out from the rains and were pretty hard to get to.  So I revised my plan and found a couple of shorter hikes that I wanted to try out and was on my way.  The first trail I started on was ok for awhile, but quickly became hard for me to spot the cairns, which are trail markers, along the path.  It was pretty hot out and I was really starting to feel the effects of hiking for six hours the day before, so I decided to turn around and head back before I got really lost and couldn’t find my way out at all.   I was debating on whether or not to go on the other trail I had picked out while I was hiking back, but by the time I got back to my car my body had already decided for me.  I was just too worn out to do anymore hiking that day so I settled for driving around the park and taking some pictures.  One crazy thing that I found out on my trip is that no matter where I went there was always someone who had family in or was actually from Kansas themselves.  When I got back to my car I noticed the car beside me was from Kansas and the lady and her kids said that they were from Kansas City and were there visiting her sister there in utah…..small world =)  Once I left the park I took 24 highway over to 95 down to Natural Bridges Monument.  It was quite a drive, but once again well worth it because of the scenery all around me.  I took my time and stopped whenever something great caught my eye.  It was a nice way to spend the day and let my body recuperate from the day before.  I made it to Natural Bridges near the end of the day so I didn’t get to spend a lot of time there, but I got some pretty good pictures and it was a relaxing way to end up my day.  I wanted to get an early start to the next day so I drove all the way to Moab and crashed there for the night.  Next up Canyonlands National Park!