It’s quick and easy, but breakfast in camp every day doesn’t really give us the experience of seeing local places. So today we stopped at Duke’s Slickrock Grill in the small town of Hanksville, deep in the middle of Utah for a classic American breakfast – pancakes, eggs, maple syrup … the works.
Not much further down the road is Capitol Reef National Park – running north/south along a geological formation called the “waterpocket fold”. More impressive from the air than from the road, it’s still pretty awesome. So many different colours of rock and sand in one place.
We headed down the short 20 mile scenic drive which dead-ends at a dirt track in Capitol Gorge (pic by Jon).
Back on the main road just outside the park, we grabbed some lunch and did a round of laundry in Torrey, before heading south and up into the hills. Trees! We haven’t seen trees for days… “Scenic Highway 12” winds along through aspen and pine forests, ending up in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument – a huge expanse of rock, canyons and more Utah epic-ness – but that’s tomorrow’s drive. We pitched camp in the Dixie National Forest, Singletree campground, at about 9000 feet, and got down to “craft night”. Rose had found some instructions for making some dream catchers, and we’d bought thread, wire and beads in Denver.
As the sun went down, so did the temperature. We talked late into the night, huddled round the camp fire under a cold, clear, starry sky, dream catchers hanging in the trees, protecting us from those nasty dreams…
Road and Ocean 