Monday, 21 July 2008

• Summer road trip 2008 - Captiol Reef National Park in Utah, MINI Cooper - Day 6 of 15

  Day 6 Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
  

  Trip duration: 15 days (May 9th to 23rd)
  Total distance: 9000km/5560miles

  Day 6 part 1: Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

  
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  Waking up in the motel, I was a little bit bored, so I opened the drawer in quiet amusement of the book of Mormon (in german?!)

  Nice book, I had one of those at home :P

  
  Not a good picture at all (I quite regret not trying harder) but this picture is for one of my dear friend and subscriber Teresa (littlelamblittlelamb) :) I thought of her when I saw all these sheep, the little one following the adult around, as if there's an invisible leash between them, hehe.

  
  One of the weirdest name for a park ever, what the hell does Capitol and Reef have to do with brown orange rocks anyway! Well, the mystery will be solved soon... :)

  
  And the MINI Freak! A matching shirt and hat to boot, hehehe

  
  Arid lands
  A billion rocks
  But only one MINI
  In this entire block :P

  
  Women are from Venus
  And Men are from Mars
  
  Here's the proof 

  
  Definitely one of my favorite picture from the entire trip :) My dear long time subscribers would have seen this one before. This is a canyon inside the park where you could drive deep into it. It's an unpaved gravel road, a bit rough, but more than drivable in a MINI :) 

  
  The formless water wearing on the hard rocks. Perhaps, the harder one is, the more scars they'll get.

  
  How small was I?
  Walls high and dry
  Away from the sky
  A little Mini guy :P

  
  Only one way out of this park, in or out via the same road

  
  Some natives drawings on the rock wall. Triangular bodies and eyeless heads.

  I think

  They were cockroach people!

  
  A big horned sheep, behind it, a big horned sheep with some big eyed alien sticking out of its butt...

  
  So it turned out, this park is called the Capitol because of this little rock mountain, which the western explorers thought looked like the Capitol building's dome.

  ...

  lame!

  
  And here's an old mormon school for the local area kids. It's barely large enough for the MINI to fit inside!

  
  Funnily, none of the kids found this school very amusing at all.

  Or perhaps, the photographer was really ugly...

  
  Rocks. Mini. Tree
  Thoughts. Skinny. Me

  
  Leaving the park and climbing the hills of Escalante, up to about 10000 ft high! So much fun attacking the corners and sweepers without ever touching the brakes :D The MINI is definitely a hugely fun momentum car.

  
  The tires starting to have a scrubbed look to them :D "Good job Lucas", I told myself, hehehe

  
  Looking back down towards Capitol Reef National Park into the distance. Like an alien spine rising out of the earth.

  
  On the way down the mountain top I found this guy and his friends in the little Mazda using the long downhill for fun :D

  
  I actually saw them before the top of the hill, so I raced down, changed lens to the 70-200mm f2.8 and took a bunch of shots of him. He gave me his email address but I accidentally lost it later on during the trip :(

  
  Some people might be scared by the 1000 ft drops on either side of the roads, some might be scared of the sharp bends and the steep grades. But to me, this is a sign that says "OOOOOOOOOOh yeah :D"

  And on that high note, the end of the first half of Day 6, at Escalante.

  Next: Bryce Canyon National Park

  Go back to previous road trip entries....
  Day 1: Montana
  Day 2: West Yellowstone
  Day 3: Yellowstone National Park 1
  Day 3: Yellowstone National Park 2
  Day 4: Yellowstone/Salt Lake City
  Day 5: Salt Lake City
  Day 5: Arches National Park
  Day 5: Canyonlands National Park
  Day 6: Capitol Reefs National Park
  Day 6: Bryce Canyon National Park
  Day 7: Cedar Breaks National Monument / Zion National Park
  Day 7: Nevada desert and Death Valley
  Day 8: Central California and Giant Sequoia National Monument
  Day 8: Monterey California sunset
  Day 9: San Francisco Sunrise panoramas and wallpaper
  Day 9: San Francisco downtown Part 1 of 2
  Day 9: San Francisco downtown Part 2 of 2
  Day 10: Alcatraz, San Francisco
  Day 11: California Coastal Redwoods
  Day 11: Northern California Coasts
  Day 12: Oregon and Washington
  Day 12: Wayne's house
  Day 13: Pike Place Market, Seattle
  Day 13: Vancouver sunset and night shots
  Day 14: Interior BC and Squilax Hostel
  Day 15: Suqilax Hostel and Alberta

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