Okay, it was scones again this morning. Lemon for Ellen and Apple for me. They sure are good. It was not a day for hiking. We went off to Torrey, the nearby town. It has a good coffee house and bookstore with Internet access. The coffee was pretty good and the Internet connection was excellent. It gave us a chance to upload four days worth of pictures and Speedy Journal entries, as well as collect email and do a little further trip planning.
While I was inside, uploading and downloading, Ellen was outside making a couple of calls (there is no service in the campground). When she finished, she saw some birds in a nearby tree and grabbed her binoculars to get a better look. While she couldn't identify them, a man came out of the cafe and helped. They were Pine Siskins. It turned out he was an ex-Fish & Wildlife Service manager and interested in birds. He talked about condors and the problems they have and where we might see them (Kolob Canyon area of Zion National Park is a good bet). He was also an antiquarian book collector. He was retired and lived in Torrey and had just returned from Cedar City, UT on a bookstore trip (about 175 miles away) and was about to head to Ogden, UT to another bookstore (about 270 miles away). It was good thing he had a Prius.
After a brief stop at the local general store for some fresh milk, it was back to the park. We took a slight detour to look at the Goosenecks. It was a 600 yard walk each way, so you could say we took a very short hike today. The Goosenecks overlook is a viewpoint from the top of a steep (vertical) 800 foot deep canyon where Sulphur Creek has worn a winding course through the rock such that the curves are so sharp they almost touch. They have the shape of goosenecks.
Today's hike finished, we returned to camp for lunch and to refill Speedy's water tanks and dump the used water...remember those showers. While I was in that area of the campground, I stopped in the Gifford Farmhouse for a last pie before we left Capitol Reef. They had six dozen when I stopped in for scones at 8am, they had six left by lunchtime. I got one of the last apple pies of the day.
Speaking of apples, there is an apple and pear orchard right next to the campground. They manage the orchards in a historically accurate manner using flood irrigation. This means shallow ditches between each row of trees and a main ditch along the edge of the orchard. They let water flow from the river into the main ditch and then partially block the flow at points along the orchard such that the water floods into the orchard via the shallow ditches. (The water comes out of a pipeline from upstream that exits right next to our campsite).
It is still quite full of fruit, as it hasn't officially opened for picking yet, but we can go in and get a few. So we did. Our first foray today was not very successful. They have just stopped irrigating the orchard and it was quite muddy. There is little low-hanging fruit left and we spent most of the time unsuccessfully trying to avoid the mud. The soil is very close to clay and our shoes were caked by the time we came back to the campsite. It took about a half hour of scrubbing and rinsing to get the clay out of the soles.
This didn't deter us, though. After digging out our rubber Crocs sandals, which have nearly flat soles, we took the winding pole for our awning, which os about six feet long and has a hook at one end, and went back to the orchard. With our extended reach and improved footwear, we collected a couple of bags of red and yellow apples, along with a couple of pears. That ought to keep us in fruit for a couple of weeks.
After rinsing off the Crocs, it was another relaxing afternoon, although we did start to pack to leave tomorrow, storing the alcove shade tent and mounting the bikes back on the bike rack. We topped off the day with Grilled Pork Tenderloin for dinner, followed by apple pie and cheddar cheese.
Tomorrow we head to Bryce Canyon National Park and a stroll among the hoo-doos.
Photos of Capitol Reef
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