Monday's agenda was to see Capitol Reef National Park and get to Moab. Sunday evening we decided to stop in Escalante, Utah, since many had advised us that the scenery along the road between Escalante and Torrey was something we'd want to see in the daylight. I'm sure glad we did that -- the drive was spectacular. Here is just one shot of what we drove through (and over, and in-between).
Capitol Reef NP, while beautiful, was disappointing. They have a scenic road that takes you through the reef, but it was closed. We spent a little time in the visitor center and watched a video and a ranger program on geology, then set off towards Moab in the heat of the day. We stopped in Hanksville, UT for a top off on the fuel and a few bags of ice for the expected impending vapor lock.
And the vapor lock did come. Most of the driving was at 97F outside, and we made it up to I-70 and went east a bit but decided to stop at what would be the last bit of civilization before Moab (Green River, UT). We put some ice in the vee and took a break, then got back on the interstate and made it most of the way to the exit for Moab but had to stop again for vapor lock. More ice/resting, then we were on our way.
When we got off the exit ramp to Moab we still had more than 30 miles to Moab, but there were rain clusters all over the place that we were hoping to hit in order to cool things off, but we never got any. Before Moab we took a right to head to Canyonlands NP, and on one of the climbs we finally vapor locked again, bucking our way the last couple hundred feet to a viewpoint. As we iced, rested, and waited, the weather continued to cool down just a tad until we finally were able to go again and did not have any further vapor lock issues.
We made it to Canyonlands NP visitor center just 15 minutes after they closed, so Kyle did not get his passport stamped but was a good sport about it.
Due to some different mechanical difficulties that I will describe in a separate post, we are now stranded one extra day in Moab, so we'll figure something out to do today before launching back out again Wednesday morning.
Awesome photo!
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