Capitol Reef

We had a week off for spring break. We decided to go visit my brother and sister and their families in Phoenix. But we decided to take a roundabout sightseeing way. I decided to have a different blog on each place we visited. So it will take a while to get through these. Yes I am shamelessly promoting all of these places. You should go to them. They are amazing!

I had never been to Capitol Reef. I knew that it was the closest Southern Utah National Park- but I had not heard much about it. I figured it wasn't very cool if no one talks about it. It is cool. We drove up and we were blown away by the beauty as we drove up to the park. I told Andre that my expectations were already exceeded and we were not even out of the car. It really is only 3 1/2 hours away. That is not a terrible drive. This is totally do-able. We have already decided that in future years we will be coming down here for long weekends.

We were driving along just outside of the park and saw this rock thing just on the side of the road.
We went and explored it. It was so cool.

We played hide and seek.

Chase had the best hiding place. 

You could be standing right on top of him and not see him.

One night we went on a tiny hike to sunset point and watched the sunset.

Auh-maze-ing

We went on a hike to see a natural bridge (kind of like an arch). Just ahead of us in this picture is the dome that Capitol Reef is named for. Off to the right side is a pointed dome that reminds you of the capitol building in DC (I guess).

Here is the natural bridge. Do I need to say it again? Yep, Auh-maze-ing. 

Oh, and Tanner's mouth doesn't look like that anymore!

The kids would find these side canyons full of rocks and just start climbing. 

They are mountain goats I tell you.

Then we hiked through the bridge.

Another day we hiked through the "Grand Wash". I learned that a wash is a dried out river. So a river created this really cool canyon for us to walk through. The sides of the canyon are soooo steep and tall.

See, Alex is down in the bottom right side of the picture. The walls are massive!

We found tons of caves and side canyons to climb around in here too.

We walked through this really narrow part.
I could imagine raging water rushing through this.

The kids posed for a picture for me.

Up coming: Goblin Valley.....