Left Green River around 2:30 pm. Arrived in Loa around 6:30 pm. There was a dispute are our arrival time because we were heading west, and we had conflicting information from all the clocks available to us. Since there was a dispute, I tossed a yellow flag and made a judgement call. We arrived at 6:30 pm. Normally it’s a 2-hour trip but we did it in 4. I think that a new record. I blame it on the GPS for getting us heading in all the wrong directions. Took a couple of stops to figure it out. The last one took us from 1.5 hours to our destination, down to less than an hour. What a trip, but we saw some incredible country because of the error.

Upon our arrival we were blessed with rainbows and an excellent view of a comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

Getting to Loa with our trucker GPS made it a long day because we were directed away from I-70 due to construction and routed too far north for everyone’s comfort. Diane called the RV park at our destination and got good info for a faster way to get there. In the end, everyone was happy to be in Loa. Gary, the owner of Fremont RV Park met us as we drove in and directed us to our assigned spots. He saw us coming because he lives just across the street from the RV park. Pretty handy.

Diane and I slept well in the cooler air. Loa is just over 7,000 feet elevation which meant we were in for a much cooler night. Matter of fact, it downright cold the next morning. didn’t get a temperature, but my body let me know it was cold even though I didn’t wake up until 8:45 am.

We fiddled around pretty much all morning then saddled up and headed to Capitol Reef National Park. It was pretty awesome. We didn’t drive down every road but saw enough to make the trip worthwhile. I have hundreds of photos of rocks, hills, and mesas.

On the way to the park is a small village called Torrey where we stopped at a knick knack store that had a front yard crammed full of interesting items. Diane was going to get a whirligig thing but changed her mind when she learned that all the stuff is from Mexico. That’s not a bad thing. She was more interested in things made locally.

This first one is for all the kids in the family:

This next photo, though probably not appropriate, has a story. While walking to this building we had to walk along a very fast-moving irrigation canal. Not a big one, about 3 feet across, and it looked to be about 3-4 feet deep. Hard to tell because the water is the same color as all the hills surrounding the town – the color of Max’s ears. Grass grows right up to the edge and the water is about a foot below the ground and there is no gradual slope on which to rest tired little dog feet. So, Max must have marched to the water thinking he might get a drink and took a header into the water. I wasn’t aware of this until I felt some strange tugging on his leash. I was talking to someone. When I turned to see what the commotion was there was little Max struggling to get out of the water, but he couldn’t quite make it. He was wearing his harness, so it was easy to pick him up with the leash and put him on high ground. I know, I should have taken a photo, but was more concerned with getting him out of the water. He was a happy camper and shook most of the water off very quickly. There’s something about his fur that repels water so he dries fast. The below photo is simply a representation of how that little event scared the crap out of him. Yes, I cleaned it up.

Now for some random photos I took while Diane buzzed around some roads in Capitol Reef.

I don’t know who that is in the below photo. I just needed a photo of the sign because I kinda cut it off in the following photo of our group. Some of you know these guys.

This pile of rocks is called “The Castle”.

Max really enjoyed the trip and riding with his head out the window helped dry him off. Diane said he smelled terrible, but I couldn’t tell. He smelled fine to me but then, I eat stuff I’ve dropped on the floor.

I love this big gnarly. It resides in an orchard of various kinds of fruit that were planted by early residents of the space. Anyone riding through can stop and pick fruit. There is a cost, but I don’t know what it is. Lots of people stopped to partake. The area is called Fruita. I read somewhere along the line how that name came from but darned if I can remember it.

I have to stop this now because for some reason I poured milk on my laptop keyboard and that didn’t go well. After pouring the milk off I dried it as best I could but some keys are rebelling, failing to function. Specifically, the 6 and 7 keys don’t work and neither does the “m” key. Turns out that those particular keys aware absolutely necessary for some passwords and words like mumble, mommy, for example.

I know you are wondering how I can possibly continue as I am obviously doing right now. We’ll, I’m finishing this up on my iPad. I could continue but there would be no photos. We’re going shopping tomorrow to rectify my interlude with that glass of milk.

Tip, next is our trip from Cannonville to St. George and some minor maintenance on the RV.