Our tee pee wasn’t the warmest sleep we have ever had. The kids seemed fine, but Dan and I faced the door and caught the cool breeze most of the night. We awoke during the night to sleet coming through the hole in the roof. We had left the cooler bag out as it had the milk and juice in it and when we bought it in it was iced over!

A chilly pack up and we were off for a long days driving to Moab via the scenic route, highway 12 and 24 through Grande Staircase and Capitol Reef national park. The views along this road were breath taking as agin the elevation was about 9000 ft at times. The landscape was rocks and conifers and very pretty. At lunch we stopped by the river at Fruita and enjoyed our peanut butter sandwiches while we watched the mule deer grazing among the 2000 fruit trees. These trees were planted by Mormon settlers in the early 1900′s; they have since left and now the fruit is free to take, unfortunately nothing in season. We then headed through the Capitol Reef National Park, which followed a water pocket fold. The rock was chocolatey red and very layered. Absolutely beautiful. Heading out towards Moab the scenery  wasn’t as great so we all took advantage of catching a few z’s except for Dan of course! We arrived at Up the Creek in late afternoon and set up camp beside a small stream. The tent only campsite backed on to the highschool football field where the gridiron team was practicing. We walked over and watched for a bit, but it seemed to take forever for them to do a couple of plays and hits. We then went for dinner, found another great mexican place and then mosied the main street. Moab seems to be the t-shirt town, with many different t-shirt and outdoor stores.

This morning we got up early to join our Colorado rafting trip. There wer eight people plus the guide. We drove up the river about 45mins put the boat in then rafted  miles down stream through about five class one rapids. The trip was lovely, following lots of red rock and the river is banked with trees turning yellow with their fall leaves. It was a little cool as the weather is a little windy and overcast, but it was fun and the conversation with the other americans and our guide was good. We are now enjoying some sour dough salad sandwiches in the Moab bakery. Have to leave off here though as we need to hit the Arches national park this afternoon.

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