Honeymoon Day 5: Capitol Reef National Park

We woke up pretty early, and packed up our car to start our drive to Capitol Reef National Park! It was about 3.5 hours from Arches, but we wanted to make sure we got there as early as possible because this was the campground that didn't allow reservations. So, we had Cheerios in our car again for breakfast (we did that a lot...). We were there by about 11:30am and we got a GREAT campsite with a cute little tree!  We set up our tent under the tree (to protect us from the rain, because yes, it was supposed to rain again... It rained every day of our honeymoon until Day 7!), and we set up our chairs and put a tarp on the table, because we wanted people to know that the campsite was super occupied!  

There's our little tent under the tree! 

As we were setting everything up, the campground host came over to chat, and he was not a fan that we were only staying one night (he thought Capitol Reef had way too much to see and we should stay many nights!), but he gave us great advice on some sights to see. First, we decided we really wanted to go see the petroglyphs!! They are attributed to the Fremont people, which lived in Utah from about 600 to 1300 AD. That was a short little drive, and it was SO cool!!!  

Can you see the petroglyphs? They're about halfway down, towards the middle of the picture. 

More petroglyphs! They're along the bottom of that ledge.

And more petroglyphs! They're right in the middle of the picture. 

And more! 

After that cool little stop, we drove over to the Hickman Bridge Trailhead, and hiked about 3 miles roundtrip (with about 400 feet of elevation gain). It was a really great hike (not too hard, not too easy), and the Hickman Bridge was SO cool. We also met a lot of great people on this hike! 

Hickman Bridge!

This is right after we walked through the arch, and we're standing right under it. 

I just thought this was a cool mountain. 

After we were done with the Hickman Bridge hike, we decided to head over to the Gifford House which is a cute little store which was near our campground! They're known for their pies, so we got the LAST apple pie along with some hot beverages (coffee for McGee, mint tea for me), and went outside to have our nice snack. We sat at a table underneath a nice overhang, because it was starting to rain a bit! Perfect pie and coffee/tea weather. 

Pie and sporks! We demolished this delicious pie so fast. But don't worry, it wasn't a full-sized pie, as you can see! 

After our snack, we went on a drive to try to find Cassidy Arch (shout-out to my amazing little niece Cassidy!!). We didn't want to do the hike (it's a really difficult full-day hike, but the arch is supposed to be super impressive when you see it up close), so we were looking for the viewpoint. We drove down a very scary unpaved road which had signs everywhere that it had a high flash-flood risk, so we both agreed that if there was even one raindrop while we were on the road that we would turn around and head back to a normal road as quickly as possible. We found the Cassidy Arch viewpoint, but we could not for the life of us find the arch!! We were wandering around and around, and then FINALLY we spotted it quite high up on a mountain. It was hard to see!! My pictures aren't great, but McGee got a good one that I can maybe post later.  

Here's the sign for the viewpoint! It literally just points in the direction of a bunch of mountains... 

The arch is in that darker brown portion at the top, just to the right of center in the picture. It's almost impossible to see...

Here's the arch at full distance (without zoom). It's still way at the top of that mountain... Can you see why we had a hard time spotting it? At first we were like "Maybe it collapsed...", or we thought we were taking crazy pills. We were relieved to find it! 

 Then we drove back down the super scary high flash-flood risk road, and went to a few really nice scenic view areas. After that, we headed back to the campsite, and on our way we saw a big ol' deer walking on the side of the road, and then he hopped a fence like it was nothing! There were also a ton of deer exploring our campground when we got back too. They were not afraid of people at all! Everyone just let them be and gave them space, so that was nice to see. That night we had a great dinner by the campfire (we made more burritos with our leftover cooked ground turkey), and had toasted marshmallows for dessert. We spent a ton of time hanging by the campfire that night!! Here are some pictures of the rest of our day:

Here's the deer trotting along! 

Then he just decided to jump the fence! 

And here he was safely on the other side. 

We loved Capitol Reef!!  It's definitely the least-known of the Mighty 5 National Parks in Utah, but it's a great one.