Woke up to the alarm clock, fetched the phone and shuffled back under the bed clothes whilst researching the outside temperature. Cold. Again. We did get to breakfast before 9am, after which we slowly got ourselves organised for departure. We left the room about 1030 and loaded our expanding stuff into the boot of the car, filled up with fuel, and took the road less travelled towards Capitol Reef. There is a scenic drive, which is scenic, but which we have driven many times. The alternate route goes through high meadows and ranch land.

In the first 40 miles, we had only seen two other vehicles, both going the other way. We did, however, encounter a couple of hundred cows… They were being moved down the road by two cowboys, who happily advised us to ‘just drive through them, they should move’…ok then…!

It was a really pleasant route and extremely quiet. We arrived in Torrey after 2 hours and pulled into Slackers burger place. This place does the best sweet potato fries, and I have tried quite a few! We had lunch and then drove past the red cliffs to the amphitheatre parking area in Capitol Reef.

I had decided we could do the Fremont River Trail, a walk which I had read as being a short, mostly level walk adjacent to the river, with a climb at the end to a good view of the canyon. It turned out to be more of a short walk by the river, with most of the route being a steep climb up the side of the river valley and was far more energetic and hard than I had anticipated. I forgave it, though, for the absolutely spook-tacular (Happy Halloween!) views that it revealed.

Once back the car we drank some tea and then set off for Moab. The drive through the National Park was pretty, although we were slightly delayed by more cow-herding (!).

Once out of the park, the scenery rapidly becomes more bleak and is feast of geologic wonder.

Soon we were on I-70, passing the Book Cliffs, and then following US-191 south into Moab as the sun set.

We checked in to the Comfort Suites, unloaded our luggage and then went straight for pizza at Zax’s. Nice to see some things don’t change!

Photos taken: 126

Videos taken: 1 (but not yet produced)

Steps taken: 13,429

Miles hiked: 2.2 canyon miles

Distance travelled: tbc…

(Editor’s note: thanks for the identification of yesterday’s American Robin!)

(Editor’s second note: subsequent checking of the space station track showed it not to be the station, but a regular satellite).

(Editor’s final note: yesterday’s mileage was 69, not 62 miles).