September 13, Day 11

Woke up and did 2 loads of laundry at the campground coin-op. You've just got to love developed campgrounds. We had a leisurely morning, and soon left the park, feeling like we'd seen our fill of ruins for a while. They're so cool - it's just that there's only so much they can tell you, and the rest is left to your imagination (unless you're a park ranger, and then you can make up stuff to tell people, like ours was doing. At least he was good at it).

After a few errands back in Cortez, we hit the road for Capitol Reef. It kind of depressed us to be going back to Utah, only because we're ready to make some eastward progress. We stopped to see the temple in Monticello, which is tiny and beautiful.

On a whim (meaning that I was holding the map and decided that it looked more interesting) we decided to head south and take the Glen Canyon Ferry across Lake Powell instead of the more time-efficient bridge to the north.

Drove for approximately the rest of our lives.

Arrived at Lake Powell just after the 3:00 ferry had left. However, this did mean that we got to put our feet in the water (it was REALLY hot!) and have the most interesting conversation with the ferry captain for about 25 minutes while we waited for 4:00 to come around. Greg, the captain, was hovering around 40 and single. He had apparently been a green beret, a luxury cruise boat officer, captain of a $2.2 million dollar private yacht for an old French lady, and captain of a treasure-hunting boat off the Dominican Republic. Possibly, we have met the most interesting man in the world (he once had an awkward moment... just to see what it felt like). He told us that one third of the world's gold ever mined is now at the bottom of the ocean, from shipwrecks. He also told us that he knows the approximate location of "a couple" of sunken vessels his expedition didn't bring up. Whhhhhhhhoa.

The ferry ride was awesome. Obviously. We were the only ones on it, and it was 27 minutes long, and we love boats, so it was great.

We kept driving and driving and driving, and missed the turn off that we meant to take toward Capitol Reef. This actually turned out to be okay, because it turns out that the road we meant to take is a dirt road and passable only to high-clearance 4-wheel drive vehicles. (Note: we have made a pact that the next car we own will have to be a high-clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle, because I keep feeling like we're missing out on a lot of fun, here). Also, because we were on the road we were on, we got to see an older heavyset couple on ATVs driving - yes - a herd of cattle down the road. Why is that SO the life I want??

We discovered our GPS unit speaks Arabic. We now call the woman's voice Kareema.

We arrived at Capitol Reef and had super delish tomato sandwiches for dinner. I don't know why you need to know that, but they were so good it was like the highlight of the day, so I felt like I should put that in.

The campground at Capitol Reef turned out to be full (sort of surprising) but the friendly elderly ranger hosts tipped us off to FREE camping just outside the park boundaries in the National Forest. We like free. So that's what we're doing. It's pretty great. We're camped next to some super nice German people. What's weird is that they're from Heidelberg, which (according to them) is a pretty small town, and we just met some people from Heidelberg like two days ago in Petrified Forest. Of course, it was dark while we were talking to them, so I guess it could have been the same people.