Kibitka Escape: Capitol Reef National Park, Part 2

The next morning we pulled into Capitol Reef again and got a great site in Loop C of Fruita Campground. Our site was adjacent to an apricot orchard, and mule deer were spending a lazy morning resting in the grass. We walked nearby to visit a pioneer house built by Mormon settlers, and there we bought a mixed-berry fruit pie and loaf of olive and spinach bread that may have been the best bread ever.

Orchard at Fruita Campground

We took a beautiful scenic drive in the park, seeing fabulous rock formations unlike any in the previous parks of this trip, including lovely dark browns in horizontal bands that reminded us of chocolate layer cake. Our only hike was ended early with intermittent rain and dramatic thunder. This gave us more time at the campground, where we thoroughly enjoyed meeting fellow campers and giving tours of the Escape 19, especially to owners of other brands of fiberglas campers.

People have also shown a lot of interest in our Ford Flex, a car with which they have no familiarity. Twice we have been chased down in campgrounds by people who caught a glimpse of us going by, thinking we were towing with a Mini Cooper!

Among our new campground friends were Tom and Bonnie, who are full-timers in a 5^th wheel. Tom was a professional bicycle racer, and holds the record for the senior division (over 50) of RAAM (Ride Across America), going coast to coast (Irvine, CA to Savannah, GA) in 10 days, 6 hours and 14 minutes. Bonnie was an essential part of Tom’s win because she and their son acted as crew. Tom slept only 90 minutes in each 30 hours and needed to consume 12,000 calories a day, much of it liquid. Bonnie said she felt guilty whenever she had to wake Tom up.

Tom and Bonnie were campground hosts in Death Valley National Park for several months, but Tom showed too much independent decision-making spirit there, leading him to humorously call himself “the only campground host in the national parks to ever be fired.”