The wind came up about 1:00am this morning, gusting pretty strongly the rest of the night. In fact taking the tent down this a.m. Was a bit tricky—had to catch it and de-pole it with tent in the air. (Reminder to self: do not un-stake tent until its flat on ground). But the tent proved up to its reputation and wasn't bothered at all by the gusty conditions.
Here is the setup:

After a leisurely breakfast, I was able to tour the Capitol Reef NP. Got a fantastic lecture on the geology of the area. I'm not at all sure I'll ever get it, as in places the newer rock is on top of the old and in others vice versa. But Capitol Reef refers to the Waterpocket Monocline—the longest monocline exposed in North America—100miles of it. All this area is essentially sedimentary, having received the deposits over millions of years of being sea level tidal flats. Then came the general uplift caused in some way not fully understood (and not just by me) by the accretion of California and Nevada to the continental landmass we have today. This lifted the area to its current elevation of 5500 feet. ( When the uplift occurred right here, it encountered an ancient fault line, which caused one side of the fault to rise 7,000 feet higher than the other. Because it occurred gradually and because the sedimentary rock was soft, it “folded” rather than fractured. Over subsequent millenia, 5,000 feet of this difference eroded away, leaving 2,000 feet today of exposed sediment.ary formations chronicling some 350,000,000 years of geologic history. Fascinatin' stuff this. I remember taking a Geology class in school, but it was at 8:00 am, so....well you know. I haven't seen all the N.P.s in Utah yet, but I have to say this one is a hidden gem. Right up there in beauty with any of them I'd say. 10 mile scenic drive is just not to be missed!

Left Capitol Reef about noon and meandered my way towards Moab. Passed a petroglyph site along the way and had to stop. It was so cool. I've never seen petroglyphs in the flesh—er, stone-- before. So had to take photos. They probably won't come out very well as the light was OK for the eye, but not so good for the camera. These are the only history we have of the Fremont indians, the precursors to our modern day tribes.

Found Moab about 4:00 and found a private campground with lots of room and lots of shade! Its hot. All of the NP campgrounds fill up by 9 am. I could move up tomorrow, but I'm here and set up and want to site see. Plan on spending two nights here, so I'll have all day tomorrow to travel through Arches NP and Canyonlands NP. Then I'll head south on Saturday, probably into Durango.

Its dark and the cameras are packed away on the bike. So, I'll try to upload photos tomorrow. Got to find a place to charge up the laptop, as I haven't had power since Monday.