June 13, 2004 - Capitol Reef National Park, UT - Part 2
Not that I'm looking for sympathy or anything, but take a look at this:
Now, to help you understand my "challenge" today, we're going to take a look at the thermometer we have. That top number, 4:02 is the time of day. Under that is the date, 6/13. The little arrow pointing up with the sun symbol simply indicates the barometric pressure is high. Under that, the next line, is the inside temperature (93.8 degrees) and humidity (19%), and below that is the outside temperature (115.6 degrees) and humidity (20%). I'm so very grateful we're in Utah, and not back east or even the mid west, or the humidity would be so high I couldn't touch the keyboard because of the moisture dripping off myself. As it is, I don't care if it is a dry heat, it's HOT! And we've got an hour to go before I can start the generator and turn on the air conditioners. We're parked in the National Park here at Capitol Reef, and the generator hours are 8 AM to 10 AM, and 5 PM to 7PM. You can bet your last dollar we're going to be using every single one of those 120 minutes to cool this place down. Barb is sitting outside near a sprinkler in the shade, hoping for a breeze.
OK, enough of complaining, lets get down to the sightseeing:
We've been here for four days already, and have been running around every single one of them taking pictures as we drive and hike/walk around, and we're not quite done yet. Tonight is a short drive and short (VERY short) walk for the final things we want to see. Then it's off to Moab, and all that area has to offer. With hookups, I might add. $5 per night might be very nice indeed, but without hookups or at least being able to run the generator whenever we want........well, I said I was going to quit complaining, so I'd better.
YIKES! Stuff happened, and now we're sitting at Arches National Park some 135 miles from where I started all this.
Don't let the clouds fool you. It's June, and we're in southeastern Utah. We got a couple of drops and that's all. But the clouds were impressive. And while this place is also full of sandstone, every once in a while there's something unusual about it. Like these white lines that look like quartz that are running around cutting across the lines made by settlement of the sand at the bottom of an ocean. I think.
Since this is a fairly small National Park (by NP standards, anyway), we thought we'd take the long 58 mile drive through Cathedral Valley. Starting by crossing the Fremont River. Pretty simple ford, actually. No, not really. It's a pretty complex Jeep. The river crossing was simple. And yes, this is a "posed" picture. We went across, I dropped Barb off and then backed into the river again just for you.
The road was a pretty good one. Toughest part was the washboard toward the end of the day. The main road is 58 miles, but we took some side jaunts and our total mileage for the trip turned out to be 66 miles. And 8 hours of fun.
There's big canyons and little ones. We jumped across the little one where Barb is standing. But it was interesting to see all the patterns carved into the stone.
Looking back at the Jeep you can get a perspective of the size of some of these rocks. And see? They're not all red after all. And yeah, Barb's with me so we're seeing "pretty flowers" all over the place too. Ain't it grand!
The clouds let the sun play hide-and-go-seek all day. Made for some spectacular changes of scenery, all of them great.
One of the fun things us Creationists do is listen to Evolutionists wonder how sharp rocks and round rocks, both made of the same material and the same age, got in the same place together. But I'll have to admit, it's fun to wonder about God's creation anyway.
Some times it's harder to write about what we're seeing than it is to just take the pictures and let you enjoy them for yourselves. This route we're on leaves Hwy 24 about 12 miles east of the Visitor Center and heads north, goes northwest for a while, then swings around to the east, and then goes south again until we pop out on Hwy 24 again, about 19 miles or so from the Visitor Center. Four-wheel drive is not a requirement, but handy because of the increased ground clearance needed occasionally.
A dried up riverbed and what looked like a watering trough for what, cows? Well, as you can tell by the droppings, cow's aren't the only critter that comes here. After I took the picture, I broke up the scat (droppings) and sure enough, there was hair in there, indicating probably a coyote had left its calling card. The inlet to the trough was pretty steady and cold. Whoever drilled this well sure got lucky. Not only because they hit water in the desert, but they hit some with sufficient pressure to provide just the right amount of flow, And as it spills over, it creates a little stream, and here we are at a man-made little oasis. Barb's showing that for sure cows do frequent the place. This National Park is one of the few that has grazing permits, and we see evidence of cows on a regular basis. And this drilling rig apparently drilled this well and died. You can tell by the amount of the wheels showing that it's been here for more than one flood.
The rig had been stripped of almost everything that could easily be removed, but even the bullet holes in the door couldn't erase the identification. I found it interesting that the frame of the drill was made of wood. Anybody know anything about that operating engine? I haven't seen many with the updraft carburetor like that. And then an ant hill. The place is covered with these mounds. The only entrance that we could see was on the lower right.
These ants aren't small either, but it sure seemed like they have to haul the gravel a long ways from the hole to make their mound. And the sign says it all. The predominate mineral around here is Bentonite. Well, if it's Ben tonight, is it Jerry tomorrow night? Bentonite is funny stuff. It's basically a clay, but absorbs 10 times its dry weight in water. It gets real slick and slimy when it's wet, but sticky too, and makes travel all but impossible when it's wet. It's used in the building of levees.
There's your Bentonite hill and, sure enough, more of them as we travel.
The Bentonite is really interesting stuff. Sort of crusty, like a dried clay, but clumps together and makes crunching sounds as we drive or walk over it.
We weren't sure if that sign was giving us the direction to Guy's reservoir or if it was to the Two guy's reservoir. Either way, it made us think of Barb's brother in law, Guy Demers. We enjoyed the various colors every way we turned.
Well, time for a walk. Barb bought a little book that had information corresponding to the numbers that explained a bit about what was going on at the different stops. There were 20 of these on the drive.
Yeah, it was windy alright. But that didn't seem to affect the flowers any. Of course, they're closer to the ground than we are.
Oh, yeah. Lower Desert indeed. Now, our good friend Dean tells us that this whitish stuff on top of the pillars is cement. Poured there by the rangers in the dark of night with no moon. I guess so that way the erosion makes interesting patterns and people will pay money to come see it. Whatever it is, it erodes a whole lot slower than the sandstone beneath it.
Interesting place, this Capitol Reef.