May 4 - Capitol Reef and Drive to Salt Lake City

On Sunday morning, we continued with our altered plan and headed to Capitol Reef National Park instead of checking out the local state parks. We hoped to visit a site or two in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, but the visitor center was closed due to budget cuts. Without expert insight, we decide not to do any hikes there.

So, we headed to scenic drive on Hwy 12 up to Capitol Reef NP - this maybe our best scenic drive of the trip. The amazing scenery was ever-changing with grand monuments, scenic vistas, and a climb to nearly 10,000 feet near the end. This drive that normally takes 2 hours took about 3 with our stops for scenery and picnic lunch near the end. As we traveled through the different elevations, the surroundings changed. We went from slick rock/red rock to vast Aspen groves, to Ponderosa pine forests. 

Even approaching Capitol Reef, the drive was amazing, with great views of the reef as you entered the park. We stopped at the visitor's center and stayed about 45 minutes, getting lots of information on the park. Since we were still recovering from yesterday's grueling hike, we decide to mostly view this one from the car with very short walks for pictures and scenery. Plus, it was raining on and off now, as the bad weather was moving in.

We spent about 1.5 hours sightseeing in the park before we hit the road heading for the Salt Lake City area. We were lucky to score a small cherry pie in the Fruita area of the park; we saved that for dessert in the evening.

We decided on the Hyatt Place in Lehi which is between Provo and SLC - it has an EV charger and was well rated. This drive took us about 3 hours with decent scenery. We had a quick stop to charge at a travel plaza/truck stop (we found chargers frequently at these large travel stops out West). We even saw a complete rainbow on our way!

We found dinner near the hotel at a good Japanese place, Tsunami. Then we head to the hotel for a shower and to relax the rest of the evening. We choose a hotel with free charging to we won't have to stop on our way to Zion in a few days. 

Finally - pie! But we forgot our forks in the car. Already in our jammies, we improvised by eating pie using 2 coffee stirrers as chopsticks! Don't judge - it worked!