Sorry, We're Closed Today...

I’m having trouble remembering what day it is. That’s a good thing. It means I’m on vacation. Today is a chore day, making the necessary preparations for the next three days of dry camping (no external utilities). Laundry was completed, the blog was updated and I made a few posts to a social media site and generally forgot about photography this morning. We’ll see what the afternoon brings.

The afternoon brought a closure. The Park was closed today because the scenic drive was flooded. That kind of put a damper on the day’s activity. In order to do landscape photography, one needs to have access to the landscape. Our fortunes were greatly diminished. None the less, we soldiered on with whatever presented itself to us on the way back to the campground.

Even in Utah the secondary subjects are pretty good.

We repaired to the campground for a real lunch, rest and relaxation while we hoped the scenic drive would be cleared later in the day.

Happily, the park people were able to clear off the scenic drive by the time we returned to Capitol Reef late in the day. While the scenic drive was open, neither the Capitol Gorge nor the Grand Wash were open to vehicles. If it’s not open to vehicles, I took that to mean that it was open to walkers. I walked into Capitol Gorge to make some photographs.

I didn’t go very far because the dirt road was more mud than dirt, even with a few days to dry out. So, we headed back to the campground for the final evening of civilization before we head down to Boulder and the Burr Trail.

On the scenic drive back to the highway, we stopped for a photo opportunity. I scampered up a good sized hill to claim the high ground for a photo viewpoint. I got my tripod leveled, the photo composed and then a car drove into the photograph and just stopped in the lower right corner of the composition. I had to wait for the driver to make up their mind on what they were going to do and wait some more for them to go around the bend. I think it was worth the wait.

Scenic Scene from the Scenic Drive nearing sunset

Tomorrow we break camp and head for the Burr Trail. I don't expect I will be posting again until Saturday. Being away from the world means being away from the conveniences of life such as the internet, running water and electricity.