We got going a bit earlier than expected and went to check out of the hotel.  We were surprised by some simple breakfast items in the hotel office so I brought them back to the kids who happily munched on them in the car.  There was a place called “Moqui Cave” that I wanted to check out, but it was not up until 9, and we were there at 7:45, so we kept going a bit further down the road to the “Dragon’s Belly” tunnel.

The Dragon’s Belly was really cool, even though it shouldn’t have been!  Basically, it seems that it was a culvert blasted from the sandstone under the highway.  But even though it was such a simple functional thing, it was kind of magic and we all really liked it.

We continued north, headed for a town called Panguitch.  I had told the boys that I wanted to see the quilt statute there and that it had saved the town or something.  They thought I was goofing, and so I’m not sure what they expected to see there.  It turns out, I wasn’t goofing and there was a little park dedicated to a statue of a guy with a quilt.  The story is that there were some pioneers stuck in the snow.  They prayed to figure out how to survive and the answer was to walk on the quilts.  It’s a serious story and it obviously means a lot to Panguitch, but it also made us laugh at the pure silliness of the idea.  

In Panguitch, I also took the boys to their closest equivalent to a toy store so they could get something to fiddle with in the car since this day was going to be a little more boring than the others.  They found a cube that they could transform into lots of different shapes and so grandma, via grandpa’s wallet, bought it for them.  They had lots of fun fiddling with their cubes for the rest of the day!

No one cared about seeing Butch Cassidy’s childhood home, but we pointed as we drove by.  My main goal for the afternoon was to get some pickle pie from SunGlow motel.  Susan had told me about this culinary experience from her last trip into this area, but I guess she didn’t get to try it, so I was determined!

We passed through some pretty lonely, but beautiful country and stopped in a tiny, tiny town called Koosharem where I had hoped to call ahead and order my lunch.  However, there was absolutely no cell service (for us) there.  We did pop in the little store and I bought some honey that I gave to Will because it said it was a monofloral type and I thought it might be edible to him.  

After driving up the nearby mountains, I got cell service and called SunGlow while my dad poked around outside the car looking for survey corners.  He didn’t find any success, but I did get my order in!  They were a little surprised and amused that I was calling in an order and they didn’t even take my name; “Just ask for the call in” they told me!

So we headed down the mountain through Loa and Lyman to Bicknell.  We were passed by a road rally called “Vertical Mile”.  It was funny seeing them hit exactly 30 mph as soon as they entered Bicknell.  

I got my hamburger and pickle pie.  The hamburger was really good, and it came with sweet potato tots that were amazing.  The pickle pie was not my favorite, but it was good.  I was a little disappointed at how “normal” it tasted.  It was basically a sweet bean pie but with bits of sweet pickle in it.  The pickle gave it a little bit of a zesty kick, but I think I prefer my sweet bean pies without that kick.  

We then went to plot our route, and while I had expected to backtrack a bit to go north to I-70, I was happy to see that going through capitol reef was just as fast!  So we got to drive through another national park.  It was really pretty to me, but the boys, having been apparently traumatized by monument valley, were jokingly moaning about the red rock hurting their eyes.

We arrived in Hanksville for gasoline and some fizzy drinks and I was pleased to see that there was a gas station carved out of a giant rock.  So I finally got to go in a building carved from a rock on this trip and I felt complete!  

The road between capitol reef and green river (the next piece of civilization after Hanksville) was very desolate and wasteland-like.

The boys were eager to get back to Grand Junction so they could help Grandma with her video games so they didn’t even want to take a quick stop in Green River.  So we, continued on.  We made a brief stop at a truck pull off because my dad said there was a tunnel that went under the highway and I wanted to check it out.  Unfortunately, it seems the tunnel had been gated off so we continued on quickly.  

We arrived safe and sound back in Grand Junction and the boys immediately dove into video games.