Hi all,

Friday, Sept. 30
It got down to 28 degrees last night.  I was concerned enough that I went out in the wee hours and put away my water hose so it would not freeze.

I worked on report #2 last night and did not have the web page finished by 11:30, so shut it off and went to bed.  This morning I was up around 7 and finished it.  I uploaded the web page and sent out my report.  I'm glad I did, as I have no cell coverage at all here at Torrey.

After finishing my computer work, I got ready to travel and was the 2nd to last to leave.  The drive today was mostly on National Scenic Byway 12.  This is one of the few roads in the country named both National Scenic Byway and All-American Road.  It has many, many unique parks, monuments, scenic backways, national forests, and a lot of fantastic scenery.  It was truly a unique 160 mile drive.  The panoramas were varied and magnificent.  Many of the trees were just about at their peak Fall colors.  The road was a pretty hard drive as there were constant up and down grades, along with many low speed tight turns.  There were opportunities to stop and to take side trips all along the route.

I stopped at several visitor centers and took one side trip to Kodachrome Basin State Park.  When I got there, the man at the toll structure said I would not be able to see much from my rig, and that I should find a place to park and unhook, using my car to explore.  This was more than I wanted to do on a "quick" side stop, so I just took a couple of pictures from outside and headed on my way.

I was the first to arrive at our campground in Torrey, so I set up my camping chaise lounge and read several chapters in a book I am reading.  Over the next several hours everyone else arrived.

At the campfire tonight, we decided to do a car tour tomorrow. 

Saturday, Oct. 1
Now I know Fall is here!  It was downright nippy this morning!  After about an hour of driving everyone was taking off their jackets and a couple mentioned they wished they had brought shorts.

We left camp in our caravan of 4 cars.  We almost immediately stopped at the "Torrey Kiva".  This is two stone structures a pair of brothers started building in 1996 and are apparently continuing work as time and resources permit.  It is really quite unique.  The main building is basically round with all stone walls and stone or tile floors.  In the middle of the floor is a small opening with the top of a ladder protruding.  There is a full basement (or kiva).  There is the start of a 2nd floor, but the walls are not up yet.  Behind the main building is a small rectangular building with a ramp heading down to a full basement there.  On the top is a small observation deck with a ramp leading up to it from the ground.  There are a large number of flagstone type rocks waiting to be used, along with a work bench with a sink in it, a couple of wheelbarrows, and even some tools around the back.  This is obviously a "work in progress".
 

The Torrey Kiva is a work-in progress by two local brothers.

We continued on to the Capitol Reef Visitor Center.  The ranger there showed us a good Jeep road and suggested the direction which did not ford a river.  She also told us how to find the start of the road.  We never would have found it otherwise!

We drove on the road for almost the next seven hours.  What a trip!  The road varied from smooth dirt on which we could do around 30 to fairly solid covering of good size rocks.  There were many dry stream beds to cross where you would drive down a short, very steep bank to the river bed, across it, then up an equally steep slope on the other side.  My little Subaru took them all in stride!  I did hit bottom softly several times, but could probably have avoided that if I had gone back and done it again.  (I didn't!)  Several of the later rivers we crossed had water in them, but not much.
 

The scenery was gorgeous!
	I see a tortoise.  How about you?
Norm took this picture of our lunch stop.
	I think this is a row of Egyptian mummies.
This view is looking almost straight down into the Gypsum Sink Hole.
	These are the Temples of the Moon (left) and the Sun (right).  The Temple of the Sun is actually larger, but from this position it looks smaller than that of the Moon. You can get some idea of its size by looking at our cars at the base.
Doug is crossing a rocky dry stream.
	Jean took this picture of me dropping down the bank to cross a dry stream.

In all, it was a fantastic day!  It got so we would look at the view and say "Ho hum, just some more of the same fantastically beautiful scenery!"  The colors and shapes of the formations were unbelievable.  Toward the end of the road we got up to about 9000 feet and were back in the gorgeous Aspen and Spruce trees.  Sections of the road were covered with blowing Aspen leaves, just like the fall day it is.

I am pretty well exhausted, but would not trade today for anything!

We will probably go out exploring again tomorrow, as it is supposed to start raining late tomorrow and Monday.  The weather looks good after that.  Maybe I will buy a day of WIFI Internet connection on Monday.  They are pretty pricey on their connections at $2.50 for 0 to 30 minutes, $6 a day, and $20 a week.

I think people are tired enough that we will not have a campfire tonight.  That's fine with me! 

Sunday, Oct. 2
This morning was our Omelette Breakfast.  (Oh joy! I am allergic to eggs!)  Everyone brought their eggs in a Zip Lock bag, then added the desired "fixins" from a wide selection of cheeses, onions, bacon, sausage, salsa, etc.  The bags were then given to Ruth and Jean who placed them in large pots of boiling water.  After a few minutes there was an omelette-in-a-bag, ready to roll out onto the plate and eat.  I gathered a selection of cheeses, bacon, onion, and sausage and had it cooked.  It was delicious, and there was enough oil to keep the cheese from sticking to the bag.
 

	Breakfast preparations are underway in our beautiful campground setting.
The Fruita one room schoolhouse was built in 1896 and used until 1941.  It housed 8 grades and had class sizes from 8 to 26 at a time. In the early years classes were only given during the winter months so the kids could help on the farms during spring, summer, and fall.

After breakfast, Norm asked if I was interested in going on another car outing.  I was.  We drove about the same distance as yesterday, but over a much better road.  This time there were just 7 of us in two cars.  We again drove about 40 miles of dirt road, out of a total trip of over 100 miles.  The road was a maintained county road for much of our route, and it was like rush hour traffic!  I think we saw about a dozen other cars on this road, as compared to 3 or 4 on our previous trips.  This trip took much less time than yesterday's as we were able to make about 30 on much of the dirt road, as compared to mostly about 10 yesterday.  There were no bad sections today, only an occasional water rut across the road.  There was a large amount of washboard, however.  Even though the drive was less trying, the scenery was again spectacular.  It is amazing how many different forms of beauty there are here in Utah!  No two mountains have the same type of beauty, each is unique.  We saw vivid colors everywhere we went.  The mountains ranged from bright red to brown to grey to green.  There were all combinations with magnificently formed structures, statues, textures, and any shapes you could imagine.  We saw shapes reminding us of birds, animals, the Great Wall of China, Egyptian mummies, gargoyles, and other forms too numerous to mention.  Often June would call out for us to look at the Eagle (or whatever), and we would not know whether to look for a bird, a cloud, or a rock formation.
 
 

After our picnic lunch at a visitor center just out of Boulder, Ed, June, and I decided to continue on past our campground to a small town about 12 miles north of Torrey and shop at a fairly good size grocery store where others in our group had shopped.  When we arrived we found they are closed on Sunday!  Oh well, it was a nice drive.  We had very high winds all day.  That and the fact that we were again quite tired, we again had no evening get-together.  I stayed up way too late (12:30) and finished "The DaVinci Code".  It was an excellent book!

Monday, Oct. 3
The rain that was forecast for last night and today did not materialize.  The Weather Channel shows rain areas above us and below us, but shows no rain where we will be for the next several days. 

I think I will finish this report for now, then go buy a little Internet access at the office to send this and post it on my website.  I will post more than my normal number of photos for this report as there is just so much to show!

You can see this report and my other reports along with a number of photos at:

http://myweb.cableone.net/rsmason

Till next time,

Dick