Another great dispersed camping site, this time just outside of Capitol Reef National Park:

B took a moment to clean her bathroom sink this morning:

We drove north on a BLM road for about 20 miles to reach Cathedral Valley, the northernmost section of Capitol Gorge National Park.  The Valley contains the Temple of the Sun (TotS) monolith, as well as the smaller Temple of the Moon (TotM) monolith, seen here to the left of TotS:

Our first stop was Glass Mountain, a selenite plug exposed by the weathering of surrounding softer material:

Selenite is soft and can be peeled into thin sheets:

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TotM in the distance:

We parked next to TotS and walked around it:

The back side of TotS:

Next we drove over to TotM and hiked around it as well:

Leaving TotS behind:

On the way back we passed these painted hills:

This outcropping is called Queen of the Wash:

Back near the main road, the Waterpocket Fold can be seen here coming right into the photo:

We stopped at the RV for lunch, then drove back into the park.  We stopped to peek into a preserved Mormon settler’s cabin:

We also saw the one room school, which was in operation until the late 1940s:

At the visitor center, the kids received their Junior Ranger badges:

M captured this photograph near the visitor center:

We visited the Gifford House in the Fruita complex, now operated as a museum and gift shop:

We visited the horses again:

The orchards of Fruita:

On our way out of the park, we stopped at the Hickman Bridge trailhead:

The weather made us nervous, but we kept going:

We found a set of small natural bridges in the creek bed:

The bridge blends in with the stone behind it, but it’s there:

After the hike, we drove back to the RV and hitched up.  We drove east to Hanksville, stopping for groceries and WiFi.  We then drove north, west, and south to a dispersed camping location just outside Goblin Valley State Park.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.