Capitol Reef National Park Part One

 

Wonderland RV Park, Torres Utah

Saturday June 15 2024

Our two-night stay at Ruby’s Inn and Bryce Canyon is done and we have moved north again. Our new campground is called Wonderland RV Park in Torrey Utah. Its about 100 miles north of Bryce Canyon. It’s a smallish RV Park, right in town. My vibe-o-meter tells me it was an old park that recently has gotten new owners and they have totally renovated the business. The most remarkable thing about it is every site has green grass. You don’t see a fine green lawn much out here in the desert southwest.

Bryce Canyon NP to Capitol Reef NP


I can’t say we took the road less traveled to get here, there’s only two roads from Bryce to here. I can say our choice was a good one, it was a two-lane country road. The first half of the way was 40 mph speed limit through open range land. (We only encountered one cow who had ventured onto the road) On the upper half of the day’s journey the hills started to rise on each side of the road. Eventually they closed in on the highway and the speed dropped to 25 mph as we wound our way through a narrow pass where the hills came together. 

The entire route was scenic and little used. We saw very few homesteads, a couple small villages and almost no traffic. The only real activity we saw was near the Otter Creek Reservoir, were we saw boats being pulled behind vehicles and UTV’s driving on the roadway.


We had a scare with the truck when we got to the RV Park, I heard a strange noise coming from the front of the engine. I knew it wasn’t an internal engine noise and my first thoughts were a bad bearing in the alternator or one of the idler pulleys for the serpentine belt. Turned out to be the air pump for the truck horns, which is mounted just below the radiator was running continuously.  I can’t access the associated pump/tank/hoses assembly here on the road, I’ll fix it when we get home. I pulled the fuse as a temporary fix to stop the compressor.

In keeping with our two days stay routine we just relaxed at the RV for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we will do a self-guided driving tour of Capital Reef National Park, the entrance to which is located just three miles from town.




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