14th Anniversary Vacay to Captiol Reef

 I love that we have been able to take trips to celebrate our anniversaries for the last several years.  It seems to be a much needed respite after the stress of end-of-school-year testing for Steve, and to be honest, for me too.  Our anniversary isn't in the summer, but we celebrate it in the summer so we can spend a few days somewhere.  So, anyway, this year we chose to revisit the place we went for our first anniversary, Capitol Reef National Park!  It truly is picturesque and a lesser-visited national park, although we noticed that it has increased quite a bit in popularity since the last time we were there 14 years ago!  Nonetheless, it did not disappoint.  We spent 2 nights and 3 days there.

 We stayed at a nice little one bedroom apartment I found on AirBnB that was about 10 minutes away in the town of Torrey.  It had access to the internet and satellite TV and a full kitchen where we could prepare meals.  It was actually a walk-out basement that faced the Fremont River, and was quite comfy.  Interestingly enough, although the owners live in that house, while they have guests they live in their camper so that there won't be any upstairs noise.  Pretty thoughtful people, right?

So, we had a nice place to stay, but we didn't spend a lot of time there.  We did fix breakfast (for me, since Steve doesn't eat breakfast anymore) and dinner there and it was nice to have a kitchen.

At Capitol Reef, we hiked a lot, took scenic drives, broke out the fancy cameras for pics, and got to see lots of beautiful landscapes, wildlife, and history.

There were lots of wild turkeys that apparently are aggressive and kicked out the indigenous turkeys from the park.  I spoke with a park ranger and they said these turkeys were scheduled for removal from the park in a few days.  They have chased and bit at visitors and rangers.  I thought it was funny that the turkeys didn't seem to care a lick that we were there taking their pictures.

 Steve is teaching me photography.  It is taking me way longer to learn these camera techniques and operations than what I expected, because it is like learning a foreign language, but I think I have a really great mentor who is mostly patient with me and my zillions of repeated questions.

Here's one of my photos

I feel like this picture has a very zen-like balance of color.

 We hiked to Cassidy Arch which is much different from the arches you hike to at Arches National Park.  When you reach this arch, you don't even know you're there until you almost fall down the hole where the arch lives.  Steve got brave and convinced me to be brave with him and walk across the arch.  When we did that same thing 14 years ago, it didn't seem so frightening, but this time it seemed way scarier.

Mr. Lizard is having his photo shoot.

 To round out our day of heavy hiking, we drove 45 minutes across the Devil's backbone (Hwy 11) to Calf Creek Falls trail.  It was a pretty hot hike to begin, but the way back was nice.  It was a 3-4 hour roundtrip hike through annoying sand and surrounded by towering cliffs that radiated heat, but the payoff was the beautiful waterfall. We were lucky that we had the waterfall practically to ourselves for 10 minutes or so.  There was only one other guy there and he took our picture.  It was so serene to be there without a bunch of people around.  It felt so good to let the falls be our air conditioner and the icy water soothe my swelling feet.

 We found a little cafe to eat at on our way back.  My burger was beautiful but dry as the desert I just hiked through.  Steve's roasted cauliflower over cheesy grits was pretty yum!

 One of the most romantic things my husband does for me is cook me breakfast.  He makes the best eggs over easy, just perfectly for me.  And he knows how to make a plate sing with a handful of fresh berries.

 After our big hiking day, we took it easy the next day.  We mostly took pictures and we even spent a couple hours just relaxing in the shade of the tall trees in the picnic area.  Our lunch was wonderful and we even had deer come hang out with us and literally sit next to us.

 I thought this next picture was a little funny how it made Steve look like an apparition photobombing my selfie.

 So, Steve took it one step further in post processing and gave us this lovely shot:

 Our last day there we ate brunch in Torrey and had a heavy meal right before we traveled back to our children who were staying with their grandparents on the Wasatch Front.  I had the huevos rancheros and Steve ordered the bagel with eggs and red potatoes.  What a way to end our wonderful vacay!