on our way to Capitol Reef

Thursday 8/23

We departed from our campsite at the crack of dawn because we had a long driving day ahead of us.  Passed a gaggle of wild turkeys strolling along the side of the road.  Also families of deer and a few bunnies.  More up and down driving through amazing scenery.  Utah is gorgeous!  Layers upon layers of color and texture, constantly changing.  So often the natural erosion ends up looking like crumbling bricks and mortar--I have to keep reminding myself that it is NOT man-made.  We passed coal mines, coal-fired power plants, cattle ranches, lots of irrigated fields, otherwise everything was brown/yellow/red.  We stopped at a hopeful little town along the way, with its requisite LDS (Latter Day Saints) church.  We were thrilled to note that even the side streets were incredibly (almost weirdly) wide--enough that Nils could easily do a U-turn with our 20 foot trailer, in one wide curve.   Turns out that Mormon-designed town layouts always have very wide streets (I read later, with great interest, from Wallace Stegner's early book Mormon Country).  I also read that Kirtland, Ohio was a Mormon town originally….we're curious to see it, possibly, on our way back east. 

Anyway, we drove and drove and drove.  At 1:20pm it was only 55 degrees F as we crossed over high mountains (in a drizzle) in the Fishlake National Forest.  The clouds looked like smoke tendrils hanging in the mountain tops, sort of like the Great Smoky Mts of Tennessee.  The landscape kept changing and got more and more beautiful, esp as we were entering Capitol Reef.  Wow!  This place really seems to be giving Flaming Gorge some serious competition.

We arrived at the Fruita campground by around 3pm.  From the door of the RV we could see a little mule deer grazing,

A deer little visitor

as well as two horses in an adjoining field.  Also could hear water flowing in the nearby little river.   This tiny valley was settled by Mormons in the 1880s.  They planted many orchards of fruit trees (hence the name, "Fruita", pronounced "froo-ee-ta").  There are a few old museum buildings, one of which is just on the other side of the horse field.  It sells 6 kinds of scones, 4 kinds of bread and about 5 kinds of fruit pies, baked daily and available starting at 8am.  Pretty fantastic.  Nils bought a small round loaf and ate practically the whole thing in one sitting.  I indulged in a small cup of homemade chocolate ice cream, and was supremely happy.