Nomad exploring life wherever I am
One of the things I loved most about Capitol Reef was the tafoni. The WHAT, you say? Tafoni. Yeah, I didn’t know that’s what it was called either. But now we both do 🙂 It looks like this when you stop the car, get out, and actually stand in front of some of it. Cavities, holes, pits, whatever you call them, I fell in love with the big walls of tafoni at Capitol Reef.
You would think that by this point in my trip, I would be expecting amazing things at every stop. And I was. But, honestly, Capitol Reef was perhaps the most unexpected place I’ve been in my life. Why, you might ask? Here’s the thing… I hadn’t done any research about this place. I had somehow skipped my friend’s blog post about their visit. I’d actually never even *heard* of Capitol Reef until I was planning this trip and figured I might as well be check this National Park off the list, since it was literally on the way. So I…
I did not expect much on the 142-mile drive from Arches National Park to Capitol Reef National Park. On Google Maps, I-70 to Highway 24 just looked like a whole lot of desert. Having survived a childhood of being driven all over the Arizona desert visiting family, I wasn’t expecting much. Wow, was I ever wrong. And never more happy to be wrong! Coming down I-70 west out of Green River (which is a solid gas stop, by the way), I saw the first taste of things to come. Meet the San Rafael Reef, the eastern edge of the larger…
That first drive into Arches National Park felt like I was on a movie backlot where the set designers had gone completely crazy. There’s just no way to grasp the scale and expanse of Arches when you first see it. It’s a good thing I got there early in the day when the traffic was pretty mild because with each mile, I drove slower and slower, trying to take it all in. Four drives out and back on that 18 mile road in three days and at the end of all that, I still felt like I was a tiny…
I kind of punted on this part of the trip since the original plan was to boondock with friends just outside Arches. But when they couldn’t make it, I waitlisted myself for a Utah state park close to Canyonlands and boy, was that worth the wait. I ended up with 18 hours to see Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park, so I made the most of it, with camera in hand. Let’s go!