Spring Break at Capitol Reef

Early in our marriage Jill and I went to Capitol Reef National Park a couple of times with the Bunkall family.  They have loved Capitol Reef and we even remember them looking at property down in that part of the state.  Our last trip there was in 2005, when Logan was just six months old.  This spring, though, we decided to return.  Landon has been really excited to use his 4th grade park pass again "so we can get in for free."  It still perplexes me why he cares if it's "free" or not, because to him everything is free.  I have to love that he is being thrifty. 

This year, for the first time, our children had an entire week off of school for Spring Break.  Many people we know traveled for the entire week, but since I couldn't take much time off, we settled on a quick trip.  Monday I went to work and when I got home we drove to Richfield and stayed in a Fairfield Inn.  It was a nice place and we made good time traveling down in the evening.  We got to the hotel at almost 9:00 p.m. and still let the children swim for a few minutes.  They were hungry coming out of the pool, so I walked to a gas station and got them some peanut butter pretzels.  I also bought some Bugle chips.  It was a flash back to our honeymoon when we got Bugle chips with Easy Cheese.  We got the children down, but of course there was some drama about who was going to sleep on the floor.  Logan slept on the floor this trip and after dad had to get angry, everyone finally got to bed.  

The next morning, we had a great breakfast in the hotel and then got on the road and traveled about another hour to Torrey.  On our way to Capitol Reef, we had planned to pick up a lunch to take into the park.  Subway was closed so we bought delicious sandwich boxes from the Chuckwagon Deli.  It was a terrific lunch, much better than Subway would have been.  Of course, it was also twice the price, but it was great and I would even go back.  While our food was being made the boys and I checked out this awesome 100 year old tree!  It was enormous! 

With lunch in tow, we drove to the Visitor Center to get some maps and information about hikes.  Our first hike was Cassidy Arch. 

It was a bit cloudy but was nice and cool for hiking.  Our children had a blast running around on the red rock.  It was less than two miles into Cassidy Arch but it felt longer than that.

You can see the arch in the background.

Landon was happy to get us into the park for free.  He was also happy to go to Capitol Reef and spend time in Wayne County.  He has a county report that he is working on in his class at school and had chosen Wayne County.

The arch is quite a sight.  At first Logan was a bit hesitant to go out and walk on it.  Landon is the daredevil who couldn't wait to go stand on it.  Ultimately, even Jill went out and walked on the arch.  She and Logan were very brave and now everyone gets credit for going out onto the arch.

As we hiked back we took some pictures in the wash where the children could hide in the crevices.  They loved climbing in the rocks.

We checked out the old school building in Fruita.  The kids were fascinated by the one-room schoolhouse.  There was some recorded information that we listened to.  It's funny the first teacher was ran out of town by the vulgarities of the children and parents of this small Mormon community.

The town was once called Junction.  Someone had an idea to change the boring name to something that represented what they did.  To go along with all of their fruit trees, they named the town Fruita.

Behind us you can see some amazing petroglyphs.

The next hike we did was Hickman Bridge.  It was a shorter hike--only about a mile in and a mile out.

The hikes were really fun and getting away for Spring break was really nice.  We got back on the road around 5:00 p.m. and had a nice drive home.  For dinner we stopped in Payson at our children's newest favorite restaurant....Taco Bell.  We've been now three times in a few short weeks and the children can't get enough of it.  Landon especially loves it and is always asking if we can go to Taco Bell.  It reminds me of my brother Jake who used to eat there all the time in High School.

We had a great mini-vacation.  I get to go back to work for the rest of the week and Jill and the kids will be able to play at home for the rest of the "staycation."