Capitol Reef National Park, UT / Drive to Salt Lake City

Sunday, October 9

It was still cold when we woke up, but the blue sky was hard to resist. It was time to get out and hike!

Andy, Auggie and I drove down the road just a short way to Capitol Reef National Park, another gorgeous red-rock mecca in Utah. We went to the Visitor’s Center at the park, where it was confirmed that Auggie could not hike in the national park (aaargh – that’s really maddening by now!). So we went just outside the boundary of the park and pulled the Champagne Chevy off the road to park. We were going to make our own hike.

It really was a gorgeous day. For our hike, we followed a dry streambed up into a valley as far as we could, and then did a bit of clambering over big, red boulders. Auggie gets a gold star for hanging with us and doing his own boulder-bounding. What a cool dog I have!

Here are some shots from the hike.

We took off for Salt Lake City just after noon. It was about a five hour drive back to SLC, so off we went.

On our way north to Salt Lake, I saw my first (and only) "Speed Limit 80" sign of the trip! 

On the outskirts of SLC, Andy took a detour into the Timpanogos Range in the Wasatch Mountains so I could see Sundance. This was the real Sundance … of Robert Redford-indie movie fame … it oozed coolness. 

And it was certainly lovely on this pretty fall afternoon, tucked away in these pretty mountains, with fall colors on the trees and the pretty alpine stream bubbling through. 

We poked around a bit, got a coffee and then headed the rest of the short way back to Salt Lake.

It felt nice to be back in a city, in the midst of people and a bit of bustling traffic, even on a Sunday afternoon. It was also nice to be in an apartment with running water, a kitchen and a full-fledged heating system. Aaaaaaah! Life on the road has been wonderful, but there are also some things that a house and home have to offer, too. It was time to indulge these “foreign” things for just a bit! 

And I also noted that we're not that far from the end of our trip, so my brain was starting to think about these things ...