Capitol Reef

Jumping back briefly to our drive to Moab yesterday. We hadn't planned to visit Capitol Reef at all, so it was a treat even to get to drive through. The drive wound past large, red sandstone rock formations - a largely arid landscape until we entered the Fremont River Valley.

This river valley was the home of a Mormon settlement called Fruita that was established in the late 1880s. The park service has restored the Gifford Farmhouse as well as the tiny 1-room schoolhouse. As you drive along the river, you pass the orchards the settters planted over 120 years ago. 

That green doesn't last long once you leave the park. The drive east of Capitol Reef passed through one of the most desolate landscapes I've ever seen: we drove past gray piles of earth that looked like every living thing on Earth had been burnt to ash.