Morning Nahptime: Capitol Reef, the Desert Beauty

What a gorgeous bi-annual Hooper vacation! I've never been one to get really excited about geology and the natural sciences, but Capitol Reef is so pretty! It's also not as big as some of the other national parks, so you can spend more time looking at things and taking mini hikes to each marker. Some highlights of the trip include holding hands with 4-year-old first cousin-once-removed as our group hiked along a wash-out path of Capitol Gorge. He started singing his own little kid songs, starting with one about stepping on the clay that looked like broken egg shells or pottery. I sang "step step crunch" as the background for that one. Next he sang one about dinosaurs, and I got to echo the last phrase or word of each line for my part. Throughout the song he'd sing, "Then what happened next?" I loved it! My brothers and teenage cousins also climbed into some of the mini-caves along our hike, quite impressively scaling the wall to reach them as well as squeezing inside. We went up one of the paths to see pools of water, called The Tanks. I got lost on the way back, but figured out how to get down with the piles of rocks used to mark the path.

Another favorite was riding in the foothills just outside the park before we met up with the rest of the family. Zak and I haven't gotten to do much off-roading since we moved to Idaho, so driving along river beds and trails made our day. He went out again with a few cousins in Beefy and another truck shortly after it rained. I'm grateful they went together, because Zak slid into some inescapable sand, and they pulled him right out of the patch.

The moms of the group came very well prepared with everything for meals and camp. We had a group site as well as three other small tent sites, so we made up about 80 percent of the campers at the RV park and campsite. I haven't gotten to spend much time with extended family for a while, nor with my parents and siblings, so three days together was a dream. My brothers aren't little anymore. Trena and Jenny taught me how to play Canasta. Zak finally got to meet my aunt and her kids who live in central Utah, whom we rarely get to see.

I also finally found out about Tibetan prayer flags, which were up around our group site pavilion. I've wondered about these things for ages, seeing them around town on houses, and now on a camp trip. Yes, we were quite pampered with wi-fi at our campground, as well as tiled bathrooms equipped with flushing toilets, showers, and hot water.

Of course, the opportunity to take pictures of my family and the landscape, especially when you mix the two, brought joy to my heart. I'm grateful they let me take pictures, not that the rocks can object, that Zak and I have a 4-wheel drive vehicle with a GPS, and that Zak enjoys driving. The iPad playing our music and occasional movies on the way home didn't hurt either. We're quite pampered campers, but we did sleep in a tent, albeit one with an air mattress and access to the camp wi-fi. Thanks for inviting us, family!