Capitol Reef

Yesterday morning we left to go to Capitol Reef with my literature of the outdoors class. Steve Peterson, the professor of the class picked us up in one of his vegetable oil powered cars and off we went. He rigged his car to be able to use recycled vegetable oil from restaraunts as fuel. It was funny because the whole we down it smelled like fried wontons!

The hike we went on was about 5 miles into a deep canyon carved by a river, which we hiked in most of the way. It was cloudy most of the time we were hiking, which made it so nice, although we were worried for a little while about rain. Luckily it passed right over us.

The rock formations, and cliffs were awe inspiring. Whenever I hike in the desert it makes me think of the explorers that came before us. The people that set foot in the canyons for the first time. We have been reading journal entries of the first explorers in the west, and it is amazing the trials they faced.

We ate lunch in the canyon and stopped a few times to discuss the book we are reading, Walden by Henry David Thoreau. It made Chris and Me feel a bit like hippies, hiking in the wilderness and stopping to read about living the Walden Life, but we had a great time. You can tell that Steve enjoyed his time sitting and reading in the desert.

He sat with his shirt like that for a good 20 minutes. A few hikers passed by and gave him some interesting looks. One old man looked at him and pulled his own shirt down compulsively, as if it might make Steve's shirt go down too. It was so funny.

After we had hiked through the canyon, we drove up to the overlook of the same canyon and took a look at where we had just been. What a view!

On the way home we stopped to eat some authentic mexican food in Salina and discuss more about literature of the outdoors. Thank you Steve! We had a blast, and a free meal!