The Adventures of Sock Monkey, Odus, and everyone else who comes along Volume #6

   Now, on with the adventures! So, we left our hotel in the morning and headed for Capitol Reef National Park. We stopped by the visitor center to get a Junior Ranger booklet for me and my mom (since she wanted to do it, too) and then headed off into the park to go see stuff. What kind of stuff, you ask? Rock-formation-and-old-cabins-from-seventy-years-ago stuff.  The river flowing behind the visitor center would have been more fun, had there not been this weird black sludge-y stuff that was somewhat like tar. I stepped in it and I still can't fully get the stain off my shoes. The ranger couldn't identify the stuff. Let's just say it is weird and super disgusting. The cottonwood trees were letting their seeds out and the cottonwood seeds looked like (*gasp*) cotton. We decided to do the scenic drive, and I admit, it was worth it. Just don't forget to bring your camera.

Sock Monkey at Capitol Dome at (shock) Capitol Reef

Afterward, while my dad napped and my mom and I waited for the ranger program to start, we decided to go hike on a trail outside of the Ripple Rock Nature Center,  where the program was, and my mom and I needed the program to get the badge but we had a good hour or so to kill, so why not go hiking? The trail was rather steep and uphill but really nice. My mom thinks she saw a skunk, but when we asked the ranger who was running the program, she said it could be either a badger or a marmot. We clarified that it was a marmot when my mom and I got our Junior/Senior Ranger badges. Other than the skunk-ish marmot and the fact that it was super-duper-uper-shmuper windy, the trail was rather nice. If anyone wants to know, the trail is called the Fremont Gorge Trail and has some really good views. Twenty minutes before the ranger program, my dad walkie-talkied (is that even a word?) us and, in short, told us to get our bums down to the nature center. We then sprinted (if it's possible to sprint down a huge slope on a windy day and not fall flat on your face) all the way down the trail to the nature center.

Sock Monkey at Ripple Rock Nature Center

I found this lethal-looking thing outside the trailhead. And kids have access to this...

Found this fella outside the visitor center. Closer..

The ranger program was about geology and was pretty good. The ranger, who's name was Cinimin, talked about the layers of rock and then let us "play" with an interactive model of erosion.  She had us kids put little plastic barn animals on the pan of soil, and then let us do certain erosion - like forces. We did wind (didn't do much) and rain (also didn't do much) and then a river (a little more) and then I got to do the flash flood in which I got to pour a good five gallons of water on to the model (which was starting to look rather beat up). I made a really nice canyon with Dead Horse Point because one of the plastic horses fell into my newly created canyon. Get it? Yah. A slightly lame joke but, whatever. Anyway, after that, we (my mom and I) got our Junior/Senior Ranger badges and headed to the hotel. The hotel, called Red Sands Lodge, is epic! Maybe it was the indoor pool. Or it could have been the horses that we fed in the back. Or it even could have been the breakfast that led up to this review. Who knows?

Horses. At Red Sands Lodge.

Anyway. I guess I'm done so, questions, comments, etc, the comment board is a click (or finger tap, depends on the device) away! Go ahead! Try it! I must finish soon, so thanks for reading!