106. Hanksville to Torrey, UT

Monday, Oct 12, 2020

Sad news. Received a message this morning from long time full timing friend, Dale Pace. Sharon and I met Dale and her husband Terry probably 15-20 years ago online, probably Facebook, and with common interests in traveling we maintained a virtual friendship over the years. Sometime after Sharon’s passing, Dale and Terry, traveled deep into FL, squeezed their big Phaeton motorhome into a site at Collier-Seminole State Park and visited me at Port of the Islands. It was fun meeting them for real. We took a boat ride out to or towards the Gulf and Dale snapped some great bird pics and shared them. Dale wrote this morning that Terry passed away last night. He suffered severe heart issues for some 22 years and never let it stop him – though Dale did most of the motorhome driving. RIP, Terry.

Today was a bit windy but a great drive. In my last blog post, I wrote about my Thursday cross country drive along The Comb Ridge. That drive ended when it intersected Rt95 which I then took to Blanding and back to Bluff. What I missed in that blog post was that part of the route on 95 which went over and thru the ridge to get to the easterly side. I missed it because I didn’t realize what was coming and so was unable to react quickly enough. So today, heading to Hanksville, I covered the same 50 miles as far as Natural Bridges as I did last Thursday. I was prepared and ready this time.

Once west of Natural Bridges (just before Fry Canyon on the above map), the scenery along Rt 95 makes a major change going from an often green ride with mountains in the distance to red rocks ‘in your face’. No more ‘in the distance’. When I was a kid, I wasn’t much into reading Westerns. The Hardy Boys was more my style. I do have a memory though of the covers of Zane Grey type novels and I think I saw lots of them, LIVE, today albeit from a motorhome rather than a horse.

Arrived at the small town of Hanksville and guess what? Instead of a House in the Rock, they have a Sinclair Gas Station in the Rock. People must have too much time on their hands.

After checking into the campground, I took a short nap and then took the Jeep about 25 miles north to Goblin Valley State Park. Strange looking place and you can wander all through the ‘goblins’. There are actually 3 separate valleys but only one accessible by vehicle.

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Tuesday, Oct 13, 2020

It was a short driving day but a pretty one driving through Capital Reef National Park on the way to Torrey. Capital Reef derives its name from a long, approximately 45 miles, north south fold, called Waterpocket Fold, or uplift which over time has eroded or folded over resembling, they say, an ocean reef. Since it’s Utah, there’s an abundance of rock of all color and type but, in keeping with the name Waterpocket, there’s a small river that runs thru the valley which provides a number of green an fertile areas. After checking into the RV park in Torrey, I took the Jeep back to Capital Reef to check it out.

Within the Park there is a historic site of an old settler’s town, Fruita, UT, now a ghost town. It’s in a valley with the Fremont River (we midwesterners would call it a creek but then again it’s dry season) and probably looked fertile to exhausted settlers. They planted thousands of trees bearing Jonathan, Rome Beauty, Ben Davis, Red Astrachan, Twenty-Ounce Pippin and Yellow Transparent apples, Moorpark apricots, Elberta peaches, Bartlett pears, Fellenberg plums, and the Potawatomi plum. Settlers also planted English and black walnuts and almonds. Grape arbors appeared later. Around the turn of the century, with basic essentials taken care of, settlers turned towards constructing a school, stores and a small lodge. The orchards are now a very very large picnic area, educational nature trails and campgrounds. Visitors are allowed to pick any of the fruit as long as they eat it in premise.

Tomorrow south towards the Bryce and Zion NP area for 5 days.