Capitol Reef

As you all hopefully know, this weekend was Memorial Day.  Brian and I decided to take advantage of our day off of school and enjoy a little camping with our cousins.  On Friday afternoon, Brian and I drove down to Capitol Reef National Park.  I really don't know exactly where it is--south about three hours?  That's pretty descriptive, I know. :)  We got to the park at about 6 pm and there was sign outside the campground announcing, "campground full".  We knew that was a possibility but it still sort of caught us off guard and we weren't sure what to do. Luckily, we didn't let ourselves be deterred by the sign and continued on into the camp.  One of the sites had just been emptied and they hadn't had time to change the sign!  So we got it.  It was great.  

We've kind of been thinking about buying a tent for awhile now and we found a good deal the other day so...we bought a tent!  It was pretty exciting.  The only problem, the tent guaranteed to keep us dry but...it didn't.  More on that later.  Brian kept dropping hints to the people taking this picture that we were siblings and not married.  It was pretty funny.

It was just Brian and I that night because our cousins weren't arriving until the next afternoon.  So we played a little frisbee and I got a bruised lip...

And Brian did a superb job cooking our tin foil dinners.  It was rather impressive.

That night, we went to the camp amphitheater and listened to this retired professor from Indiana University talk about some space probes that have been around our solar system.  It was actually pretty good.  And he had some neat pictures.  It started raining at about 10:30 that night so we stayed up for a bit playing cards in our tent and then went to bed.  It rained non-stop until about 1 pm the next day.  Yeah, how's that for awesome?  So we spent about 12 hours in our tent, mostly sleeping.  When we finally decided to brave the weather, we realized that our trusty no-leak tent had sprung several leaks.  So Brian went out in the rain and tried to fix the fly with me directing him from inside the tent for about 20 minutes.  It didn't really help.  So we resorted to using towels to soak up the puddles.

Finally, we realized that getting at least a little wet was inevitable.  I hate rain, but I tried really hard to embrace it.  We went on a scenic drive and even hopped out to take a few pictures of the scenery that was beautiful, in spite of the rain.

It stopped raining just in time for Mark and Jamie to arrive.  They brought their 20 month old Charlie and also two of Jamie's brothers came.  It stayed dry long enough for them to set up camp, rained during lunch and then stopped long enough for us to decided to venture out on a hike.  When we were almost to the top, guess what happened? Yep.  It started raining.  

The funny thing is, we had a pretty clear view of the scenery until...we reached the top.  Suffice it to say, by the time we reached the bottom, we were drenched.  Sopping wet.  I wish I'd gotten a picture of my shoes.  They were totally caked in mud.  At first, I tried to avoid it, but it soon became clear that it was a waste of my time.  I might be bad at embracing rain, but enjoying the mud was a little bit easier. :)  This picture fairly accurately displays my feelings at this moment.  Jamie's brother Micah is standing behind me.  And another fun fact--those shorts I'm wearing?  Turns out they're really see through when they get wet.  Yeah.  Didn't know that.

So after we got drenched on our hike, the rest of the night cooperated fairly well for us.  It started sprinkling again when we were trying to make dinner and we must have looked really pathetic because this man came over with a canopy and told us that they weren't using it if we wanted to.  Bless his heart.  That canopy rocked.  We successfully made dinner that night, went to another slideshow by the astronomer, stood by the fire for a bit and then called it a night.

Sunday morning was...sunny!  It was a miracle.  We had a delicious breakfast and then took off as early as we could to try and enjoy as much of the nice weather as possible.  We hiked to Hickman's Bridge and through Cohab Canyon.  They were both really great hikes.

This is Hickman's Bridge.

Jamie told us that you could get on top of the arch so for about half an hour, we followed Micah through the craziest "trail" in an attempt to walk on top of the arch.  Finally we got up pretty high and looked down at the people below us.  We heard this little kid (one of those people at the bottom that you can barely see) say, "Mom, I want to go up there!" and...that's when we decided to just give up and head back down.  It was worth a try.

This is one of the views through Cohab Canyon.  That's Brian and I with Jamie's brothers, Micah and Adam.

The rest of that afternoon threatened rain so we spent it exploring the visitor's center.  We watched a pretty great movie about erosion and listened in on some french people's conversations.  You know, a productive afternoon. :)  It cleared up later so we went to the park and threw a frisbee around and then decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go on another quick hike before dinner.  It rained again after dinner that night but we got a sweet double rainbow out of the deal so all in all, it was worth it. :)

The canopy donated to us by that kind, kind man.

And a lovely view of the double rainbow.  If you look closely, you can see it.

Monday morning was sunny again so we picked up camp and hiked Chimney Rock on our way out of town.  It was a pretty great view.  You can see it behind Brian and I in this next picture.

I decided to include this one to prove that Mark, Jamie and Charlie were actually there.  This was taken on the Chimney Rock hike.

So in spite of the rain, we had a great time.  It was really fun to actually be able to spend quality time with some extended family (something we never do) and to be in nature for a few days.  Can't beat that combo.  The goal for now--survive the rest of the term.