Labor Day Weekend Getaway

We were able to escape for the Labor Day weekend and travel down to Capital Reef National Park in Utah to visit my husband Bill's oldest sister Cathy. Cathy is a park ranger and we were able to get a first class tour of the park in the short time that we were there. It took about 7 hours to get there, and when we came into the park it was about 10 p.m. So everything was dark. We couldn't see what the park looked like. When we woke up, we looked out the windows and saw many deer in Cathy's yard and a red rock wonderland. It was breathtakingly beautiful!:



We woke early to escape the heat and went on a morning hike to Hickman bridge:




After our hike, we went on a drive and came across a family of bighorn sheep:



Cathy took us to a secret place in the park that only a few people know about where there is a HUGE dinosaur fossil that had been partly exposed in the side of a cliff. Porter is standing in front of just a small portion of it:




We then drove to see a range formation that Cathy called The Biscuits:



On our way back from seeing The Biscuits, we stopped at the one room Fruita school house. Porter enjoyed writing on the little individual black board that was on each desk and listening to the ranger give a lesson out of one of the textbooks that they may have used:


Later in the afternoon, Porter received his Junior Ranger. (He now is a Junior Ranger in Great Basin National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and now Capital Reef National Park) Here he is being sworn in. They also announced his name over the microphone at the visitor's center where he got an applause:



My favorite part was going up to Sunset Point that evening. It was absolutely beautiful even if we got there a few minutes after sunset. Porter and Aunt Cathy are sitting at Cathy's favorite spot:



Here is Porter in the ravenous jaws of a gigantic rock lizard!!:



It was a narrow escape from the lizard. We had a fantastic time and our only regret is that we couldn't stay longer.