It's all about RUFUS at Lake Powell today!

Rufus at the Hanging Gardens, A long hot hike! Well worth the effort! He was well prepared with his backpack and water.

The breeze blurred the orchid picture but the colors still show up.

Easily Amused...

Today we went to Cedar Breaks National Monument,  Brian Head and Dixie National Forest. It was cold and there was still some snow on the ground.  We hoped to get to the 11,000 foot peak but as you can see by the photo it was not in the cards.  10,400 feet was tops for us today.

End of the road for us!

From there we headed to the Dixie National Forest looking for cool stuff.  Well, we found some!  Huge lava flows, a drive across the cinder cone and a cave to crawl around in!  Mammoth Cave , aptly named, is a bat habitat much like Kartchner Caverns.  It's in the middle of the forest off of a long dirt  and well worth the bumping and thumping we had to endure to get to it.  There were many different caverns, no stalactites or stalagmites  but great fun to crawl through and a lot of evidence of bats hanging around.   No one else was out there...it was an AMAZING find!! Here are more photos than you would probably want to see.....but it's my blog ....so here you go:

It was a great day!

Sign of the Times.....

Where do retired "Ho's" go? Apparently they go to Mt Carmel, Utah and bake pies.....

Who Took All of the Oxygen out of the AIR?

Bryce Canyon: Beautiful, one of my favorites, but no air to breathe. It's been 2 yrs since we've been here and our goal was to do all of the hikes and the "into the canyon" in particular.  The last time we were here we were 2 yrs younger and it was a hard hike for us then. We hoped we could just get through it and not collapse.  Even our Grandson, Nick, said "I hope you don't die". Well, it was SO much easier for us this time! Maybe it was the Camelbacks or the electrolyte tabs. Maybe the new hiking boots were the reason. Maybe we were just in better shape. Regardless of the reason, we were happy to know we could still do it. From 8100 feet down to the canyon floor and back. Woo-Hoo!

We met some nice young college age kids along the trail and took their picture a few times.  When it came time for them to take our picture.....the young gal dropped and broke our new camera. She felt awful and we kept telling her it was "no big deal. Don't let it ruin your vacation".....but she felt so very bad. So did we but kept it to ourselves!  So off to the store to spend WAY too much money on a replacement. Last year the computer....this year the camera. Oh well!

Harrison Ford...oh no, wait! It's Bill in his new hat!

Last photo taken with our old (5 month old) camera before "Camera-geddon"

Since it was Memorial Day weekend we got out of the campground and off of the trails and headed for a couple of Ghost Towns. If you read our blog from last trip you know we like Ghost Towns almost as much as petroglyphs and ruins.  We were the only ones there....well, us and the ghosts I guess.

School house, Whidsoe, Utah

We also tried out our new camera.  I had made some frozen "Happy Thanksgiving" cookies (yes, from last Thanksgiving) and tried to make them taste better with whipping cream. Here is a picture of Bill taken with the new camera....

Off to Cedar Breaks tomorrow as the roads are finally open.  We tried to go 2 yrs ago but they were closed because of snow in June.  11,000 feet up....that's tomorrow's adventure.  Will there be AIR? I doubt it. But at least we won't be walking.....

Goblin Valley State Park, Utah and Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Goblin Valley was beautiful and quirky. If you are in the area you should absolutely see it.  We had planned to stay several days but after 3 we decided we had seen and done all we could….and the wind was blowing.

So, off to Capitol Reef National Park…..the park that no one ever told us was as beautiful as it is. It is truly a hikers paradise.  You could stay 14 days, do a new hike each and every day and still have hikes to do on the next visit.  It is one of the most beautiful parks we have seen.  My friends know that Bryce is my all-time favorite.  But Capitol Reef has a whole lot more to do.  The FRUITA campground is beautiful and we were lucky enough to get the last remaining site for our 5 days.  By around 10am each day the campground is full and you have to plan to spend the first night outside the park so that you can be one of the first in the morning to snag a spot when someone leaves.  We were just lucky as we got here around 10:30am from Goblin Valley and there was a soggy site that no one wanted.  The ground water seeps up through the earth as this is a very fertile green valley with rivers and creeks running throughout.  We didn’t care, took the spot and by Sunday the creek had diverted itself and we were no longer “soggy”. YAY! The campground is a whopping $5 per night.  Thank God for our National Parks! Geezers like us can see the beauty at a price that we can afford.  Our tax dollars at work. Towering above are the amazing mountains of rock which were red, brown, beige, green and lavender. YES…lavender.  Pictures from our little camera just don’t do it justice.  But if you like to hike, and you like slot canyons, you like narrows (like the ones you find at Zion)…..well, you will fall in love with this place.  We will come back here. We’ve traveled through the Waterpocket Fold where the earth just “wrinkled”. Amazing.

To our friends Nancy and Cathie…..you must come here. Bring the camera and do what you do so well. To Bill and Karen….you really would never be bored with all of the hiking.  Mountain biking if you are still into bicycling! LOL.  To John and Lora….this is a place we would have loved to have had you with us. Hike all day and sit and have a glass of wine under the cottonwoods at days end with you both would have made it even more special.

We bought a book that I am happy to lend to anyone coming here.  It is called :

 Capitol Reef National Park

The Complete Hiking and Touring Guide

By Rick Stinchfield

It is the Bible of Capitol Reef and I will gladly lend it but would hunt you down if it wasn’t returned.  It is accurate, informative, well written and has great photos. Don’t come here without it.

 We have been rewarded with wildflowers here as well. Apparently it is now officially spring as not only the wildflowers are blooming but the animal babies are abundant. We’ve seen baby cows, sheep horses, deer, antelope and marmots . 

New Hat

You may have noticed that Bill now wears a different hat. That would be because he loses them on a regular basis.  This latest hat is a replacement for his 2^nd nice Columbia hat.  The first Columbia hat is somewhere in Nicaragua.  His Zion hat is who knows where. The 2^nd nice Columbia hat is somewhere in Canyon de Chelly. Canyon de Chelly had other nice Columbia hats but Bill was not going to fork over another $35 for a hat he was bound to lose.  So off to the only other store around….the Ace Hardware in Chinle.  A wide array of farming hats awaited him. Then he found the latest hat in his “I’ll probably lose it” collection.  People stare at him a lot when he wears it.  I tell him it’s because they think he is Harrison Ford from Raiders of the Lost Ark. That’s probably not the reason.

We are off to Bryce Canyon over Memorial Day.  There are 25 or so campsites that are reservable and we got one of them. YAY again!