Natural Bridges and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

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Sunday, May 13^th

Happy Mother’s Day! It is 57 degrees and overcast this morning at 8:30. Starting mileage was 25552

We continued driving south on US 191 to the small town of Blanding, about 20 miles away. There we turned west on highway 95 to Natural Bridges National Monument. There are three bridges in this park, Sipapu, Kachina, and Owachomo, that have been formed by running water. Each can be seen by walking a short trail to an overlook into the canyon.

After seeing the bridges, we drove out of the park and turned southwest on highway 276 toward the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Lake Powell. There are two roads to choose from to get over Lake Powell at this junction—one goes over a bridge and one goes by ferry. If you follow us at all, you know we really like to ride ferries. So, this ferry goes one way on the even hour and the back the other way on the odd hour. Of course, we arrived at the terminal/dock at 1:15 not knowing the schedule, and had to wait for the next crossing at 3:00. Nice ride that went by a huge flotilla of houseboats anchored on that end of the lake.

As we drove off the ferry and continued up route 276 towards the town of Hanksville, we saw many houseboat storage facilities along the way, even some 50 miles from the lake. Dry desert all around the lake. Very few trees and all that water!!

Highway 276 intersected back with highway 95 again as we completed that loop of road and then at Hanksville we turned west on highway 24. When we arrived at Capitol Reef National Park we found the very lovely campground full at Fruita. So, we drove toward the town of Torrey where we understood there were 2 BLM campgrounds.

We couldn’t find the campgrounds, but saw two campers parked on a roadway/trailhead wide spot in the road. Fairly sure we were on National Forest land, we pulled in and parked near the other 2 campers. Priced the same as a Wal-mart parking lot----zero cost---and the view was spectacular.

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