Remember your favorite book (for me, Cider House Rules)? Remember your favorite play (for me, American Utopia)? Remember your favorite album (for me, Mirror Ball)? They just keep getting better, and when you think the mountaintop has been reached, the skies clear and they get even better. For us Capitol Reef National Park had the same impact. After all the great National Parks we visited we thought they could not be beaten. Don’t miss CRNP!

On our way to CRNP we stopped by Boulder, Utah where great friends Susan Malkin and Jay Kelly are building a new home. What an incredible location at the epicenter of so many amazing National Parks and other areas to visit and enjoy. We can’t wait to visit Susan and Jay when their house is completed. With Jay’s impeccable home building skills and Susan’s eye for look and feel, their house will be the perfect combination of two amazing people.

The weather has been incredible. No rain (until today) and our only challenge has a been some significant wind storms blowing lots of dust. But the winds did give us tumbling tumbleweeds. Today for the first time temperatures dropped below the 50’s and while we drove up a mountain peak on our way to Vernal, Utah we ran into a snowstorm. First rain, then winds, and then winds with snow. Driving got a little dicey but we kept focused and arrived safely on the other side.

Our final Utah visit before turning Stargazer east was the Dinosaur National Monument. First we visited the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum. We learned about dinosaur bones and excavation, but what blew us away was the first life on earth, a microbe, lived 3.7 billion years ago. Dinosaurs were around for over 150 million years. Homo sapiens have been around for 330,000 years. OMG!

As we unwound at the Vernal Brewing Company, we were hit by all the natural extinctions, and the fear that we homo sapiens will cause our own unnatural extinction.