Capitol Reef National Park

We spent Labor Day weekend exploring Capitol Reef National Park. We stayed in adorable Torrey, Utah, which is just a few miles outside of the park's entrance. Our hotel, Capitol Reef Inn & Cafe, was equally as small and charming as Torrey, offering a total of 10 rooms. This park is probably Utah's best kept secret-it was so vacant. We loved this. There were absolutely no crowds to interfere with the beauty and peace of Utah's stunning scenery. We enjoyed a few hikes, an amazing sunset overlook, and a fabulous scenic drive. We will definitely spend more time in this park, when I can participate in more strenuous hikes, but for this weekend, we found the perfect combination of activities. The park is spotted with fruit orchards, where anyone can pick and enjoy the delicious fresh fruit. Apples, plums, and peaches were plentiful. We spent so much time roaming through the different orchards, looking for the perfect piece(s) of fruit. The orchards had ladders and nifty fruit pickers available. Scott used his fruit picker as a lacrosse stick, and chucked any piece of fruit that wasn't sweet or juicy enough. We found some amazing golden apples and brought a bag home. Yummm. Also, you may notice that the fruit is not the only round thing pictured below-my stomach is also quite round lately-29 weeks of roundness to be exact. We were so lucky to find this Utah treasure. Scott read about it in the Sunset magazine, which boasted exactly what we found-a stunning and basically unknown park. To us, this is the perfect combination. The Arches and Zion's can have the crowds, from now on, we will take Capitol Reef. We were also lucky to spend the weekend with Sean and Courtney-they were a blast.