I'm a sucker for desert wildflowers.
The Capitol Reef National Park has some white domed rocks that resemble the U.S. capitol building.
A "reef" is a barrier. There is a small abandoned uranium mine here. It's hard to understand how uranium deposit end up in sedimentary rocks. They used to add the uranium to drinking water for health purposes or wear it in packets around bad joints in the hope that it would cure arthritis. Now we know it makes good bombs. Stupid old timers.
The Mormons settled here and created a community called "Frutia" that produced apples and other fruits. They were all bought out by the National Park Service around 1920.
We hike down one of the "washes". When it rains here, the flash floods can quickly fill the washes to 15 or more feet.
Mrs. Phred does some high rock climbing to see "the tanks" which hold water. I give her the camera and she takes my picture from above as I eat a sandwich and hope for her safe return. As she walks along the cliff, I keep seeing her stumble and bounce 300 feet to the canyon floor.
The park is 100 miles long and five miles wide. It's a fold in the Earth that was formed about the same time as the Rocky Mountains.
Some of the exposed layers here were populated by 18 foot long crocodile like creatures with really big teeth.
Rand McNally is coming out with a new GPS that is designed for people like us that RV a lot. It has dump stations, propane stations, campgrounds and height and weight restrictions. I think I need one of these too.
The gray layer is where they say the big crocs with the big ugly needle teeth lived.
ooooooooipad 2 lucky hergreat shots mrs phrd :-)...i would have been on the ground with mr phred...
ReplyDeletethat gps sounds nice...but if you get the ipad you can get a app that has lots of that info too...sil