Awakening to a windy morning, we sat in the trailer debating whether to follow through with our original plan of driving out to a nearby significant geological feature. Finally, in the early afternoon, we decided to give it a try. We fired up the truck, set off down the highway, and a few miles from Hanksville, reached what we thought was our turnoff.
The wind blew the dirt making it difficult at times to even see the high-clearance motor trail to the site. Reaching our objective would require negotiating a half-dozen miles of this followed by a three-mile hike. We can’t take photos in this crap, so we made the logical decision to turn around and go elsewhere.
The elsewhere we chose was Capitol Reef National Park, which lay about 30 miles to the west.
Our first stop was the Gifford House store and museum where they still had a few mixed berry pies available for sale. They had two fewer available after we departed.
From there, we drove down the park’s Scenic Drive to pavement’s end and continued on a dirt road past the Golden Dome.
We continued to Pleasant Creek where the remains of an old ranch still grace the ground.
From there, we turned around, left the park and headed into Torrey where we enjoyed a great meal (with wine) at the Broken Spur Steakhouse. We met the former owners when researching a magazine feature a few years ago, and we’ve been back many times since.
Then came the exciting drive back to our camp in Hanksville. Even though we were on a paved highway, dirt blowing from the empty landscape drastically obscured visibility.
Fortunately, there was little traffic and we made it back to our trailer in one piece.
We now sit in our trailer, which is rocking in the gusting wind. If we’re not blown to Oz tonight, we’ll maybe try to reach our geological feature tomorrow.
Yes, this is what we do for fun.