A Short Weekend Trip

We took a short trip Friday-Saturday to Capitol Reef and Escalante. It was a fun little trip and nice to take a day off from work. We left early Friday morning and headed on down to Capitol Reef. Once we arrived we headed down the Notom Road. There is a lot of neat sites along the Notom Road. One of them is this place where we had lunch.

Wide view of our Lunch Spot

Grandma and Grandpa climbing around

Diaper changing time

Once we were all full of lunch we headed on our way. We next came to this fun part of the road. One of the reasons Joe wanted to drive it. Driving up the reef with many, many switch backs.

View of the switch back from the bottom

Letting James stretch his legs and play in the dirt

Half way up

We Made It!

Those are some steep rocks

After that we continued on to the Petrified Forest. We were racing against time to make it through the dirt roads before the storm so we didn't have too many stops. The last thing we needed was to be stuck in mud.

In our race against time we just hit the very tip of the petrified forest. It was still cool to see all the stumps everywhere and piece all over the ground.

A petrified stump

taking pictures

Wood everywhere

This must have been on big tree. See the rings?
I dubbed this one Alicia's stump. Why you may ask?
Well, only because the book I was reading along the way had
 just mentioned a stumped named after someone.
It is an incredibly dull book so I was trying to make light of it somehow.

Another stump

After that we headed into Boulder and then on to Escalante where we spent the night. We stayed at the Escalante Outfitters where we have stayed in the past. They have the best pizza and cute little cabins. James woke up in the middle of the night very disoriented and took me close to an hour to get him back to sleep. It was sad.

The next morning we headed back up the Capitol Reef with a stop at the Kiva Koffeehouse for breakfast. It is a small little Cafe/Bed and Breakfast in the middle of nowhere along highway 12. Such good fresh food. After breakfast we continued our trek. Back in Capitol Reef we headed out to Cathedral Valley. Once again racing against time, so we didn't get stuck in a rain storm. Darn rain! We couldn't do everything we planned because of you! Any way, once in Cathedral Valley we enjoyed a nice lunch. James enjoyed more dirt playing time. 

View from Highway 12. The building is the Kiva Koffeehouse.

Lunch at Cathedral Valley

James loves to play in the dirt

Driving back from Cathedral Valley

Back through the main part of Capitol Reef, we go. Joe made a few stops along the way to point out geological features to his parents and to see some swim tracks. His possible next project will be naming and describing these swim tracks in Capitol Reef and finding more around the area.

Swim Tracks 

More Swim Tracks

All in all it was a fun trip. James did great for being in the car through out the day, except a few break downs when it was time to move on to the next site and a short bit on the long drive home. I'm glad we were able to take a couple of days away. Hope to do it again soon and hopefully we won't get rained out again.

Here's a short video of James playing. It was windy...