Vacation Day 5 - Capitol Reef

During my planning for the vacation, Capitol Reef National Park didn't seem too exciting.  This trip is unlike most of our vacations in that we have to drive quite a bit between parks.  I put Capitol Reef on a day that we drive from Arches and to Bryce Canyon.  I figured that depending on how we felt, we could skip this one.  Caroline had strong feelings about visiting this park, so we did.  Our first hike was the Grand Wash Trail.  The hike is through a dry riverbed through the canyon.  There are signs all over saying that this was not the place to be in case of a flash flood.  Thank goodness the sky was clear blue!

The river bed was flanked by these huge canyon walls.  We felt tiny.  We met a family from College Station, Texas. Bonded by our SEC roots, we walked along together, trading tips for the trip.  They told us about all of the geodes along the trail. Sure enough - we found a few.

There wasn't a lot of shade along the trail, so when we found it, we enjoyed it.

We saw hardly any water during this trip, except during our rafting trip, so we thought it would be fun to take the Sulphur Creek Route from the Visitor Center to a waterfall.  We were a bit hesitant because there didn't seem to be a true trail to follow.  We had to cross the creek several times.  At first we tried carefully to keep our tennis shoes dry.

It was a really fun "trail" because we kind of had to find our own path.  We just followed the creek, and only saw one person along the way.

Kevin tried to stay dry, until he failed. 

Then he just gave up and walked the rest of the way in the water.

He decided to make his own water hand print petroglyphs on the canyon wall.  They lasted about 15 seconds in the dry heat of Utah.

Caroline got her shoes wet too and went the rest of the way to the waterfall in the water.

Kevin did more than get his feet wet!

Tom was the only one who managed to stay completely dry.

This ended up being one of our favorite hikes of the whole vacation.

On the way back from the waterfall, I asked Kevin to keep his shorts and shirt out of the water.  They were dry by the time we got back.  This air is crazy.  I am glad we stopped to visit Capitol Reef.  It was one of our favorites.