The Barri (more than one Barrus): "Camping" at Capital Reef

We had a mini vacation this week. On Tuesday we headed southeast to Torrey and Capital Reef. We spent three days with the Tanners hiking, swimming, and cooking in dutch ovens. It was a super fun trip. Torrey is only three hours away so we didn't have too far to go. We stayed in a cabin with electricity, a TV, and a little bathroom so we had the necessary "conveniences," but we made most of our meals with the Tanners so we had a "camping" experience. Kent's idea of camping is staying at a Holiday Inn with an indoor heated pool, so the cabin was roughing it enough for him. The campground where we stayed had a pool, but it was neither indoor nor heated. Heidi saw them filling it with a hose one morning. It was cold (really cold), but the children didn't seem to mind too much.

We love the hiking at Capital Reef. On Wednesday we hiked to Hickman Bridge, a natural arch. The hike is only about a mile one way, but the beginning is steep and strenuous. Brandt was a super hiker, walking on his own the whole way. In fact, he was in the lead up and back. He did ask me to carry him as we were headed back, but I told him he was far too heavy and he would have to go on his own. I encouraged him by telling him how tough, how big, and how strong he was. Blythe got carried most of the way. Fortunately, she still doesn't weigh thirty pounds soaking wet so giving her a "piggy ride back" (as she calls it) wasn't horrible. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't horrible. The arch is beautiful and the landscape around the area is very dramatic. There is a lot of black volcanic rock, but also pitted rock faces and striated red and yellow rock. The cactus was in bloom too. All lovely. Not so lovely were tiny gnats that buzzed around our faces and into our ears driving us mad.

That same day we stopped to look at some petroglyphs that were largely concentrated along a stretch of rock wall. There were people and animals depicted, and fairly easy to see. Not so easy to photograph, but I did get a few shots.

On Thursday morning, following breakfast, we hiked for a bit in the Grand Wash. This is a flat wash with very dramatic sheer rock walls on both sides. The floor of the wash is sandy but strewn with many rocks. Simon found a geode and that got us all searching for interesting rocks and crystals. We found petrified wood, more geodes, and Heidi claimed to have found some corprolite (petrified dinosaur poop). Brandt was delighted with that discovery and made me put the specimen in my bag. Blythe worked almost constantly on her "rock collection." Every three steps she would bend down and pick up several rocks, carry them for a few feet, then stop and pile them up. Three steps further on she would repeat the process--select, transport, pile. We spent lots of time on both hikes chasing lizards.

I am happy to report that the children loved our outing, and before we left, Brandt said, "Mom, can we come here again?" Jack and Simon want to go again as well. In fact, the day after we got home, they found a fallen tree limb which they stripped of leaves and hacked up for kindling, for our next trip. We had such a good time we may need to go again before the summer ends.