Saturday, May, 16.

Another warm day.

The problem with the jeep turned out to be a simple one. As I was checking the many plug connections around the engine I noticed a vacuum line had come off. I stuck it back on, took the jeep for a test ride and it worked just fine.

Around 11:30 we took off for our scheduled jeep ride. We headed east on Utah 24, through “Capital Reef Park”. Along the way we stopped to check out the historic “Fruita Schoolhouse“.

The next stop was a small red rock cabin called the “Behunin Cabin” built in 1884.

Patti found a lizard in the rafters to take a picture of.

We drove on and turned onto “Cathedral Valley Rd“. We forded the “Fremont River”

and drove north through BLM land for about 10 miles of very stark desert.


We pulled off the road to let some cattle being herded pass. There isn’t much out there for them to eat but some how they make it.

Finally we entered the northern end of the park where the road turns northwest. We stopped at a couple of overlooks. The first one was the “Lower South Desert Overlook.

The next one is “The upper South Desert Overlook”.

After going over a really rocky section of road we came to The Cathedral Valley Overlook”.

Then we drove down into “Cathedral Valley” The rock formations are really beautiful.


The next stop was at a place called “The Gypsum Sink hole” I don’t know how this was formed but it was pretty impressive.
The "sink hole" is at the base of this rock formation at the end of the trail in the picture.


We drove passed some other interesting rocks.
this one kind of reminds me of a layer cake.

This is the “Temple Of The Moon”

This is the “Temple Of The Sun” with part of the temple of the moon in the foreground.

After driving for about 60 miles on rough dirt roads we got back to Utah 24 and headed back toward Torrey. Along the way Patti got some nice shots of the rocks along the highway.


This one is called “The Castle”

We got home at 6:00
The round trip was 117 miles 60 of which was on the dirt road. That part was classified as 4 wheel drive road but only about 10 miles if it was real rough, the rest was a pretty fair dirt road.

Tomorrow we are going to go further south and make a loop through the central part of the Park. On the map it looks like only a third of it will be on a dirt road.