chasing the sun by Ellen

Its official. I'm like Jello Jigglers with no mold. I'm out of shape.

4,056 miles into our adventure, we entered Capitol Reef National Park. Its a less-frequented park, but its along the way and the colors of the rocks are supposed to be amazing. Well, the reports were right. We had a grand day of exploring - hiking around the desert can get hot, but we found a nook and cranny or two to hide in and cool down. We met an awesome couple - the Flatts form Illinois and it was a much needed chance to talk to some Christians besides ourselves! You can look at the photos to get an idea of what we did; the only entertaining things not shown there was eating lunch on a sidewalk with everyone looking at us like we're crazy and the Dutch guys telling us that "Dutch guys are the best".
The last part of our day was a hike along Flying Pan Trail up on some plateau where we were supposed to be camping for the night. This is Holly's first time realllllly having to hike with everything on her back to camp which make the trip even sweeter. (The other sweet thing is, of course, that backcountry camping is free =] ). Well, we started a bit late and ended up hiking further than we needed. The plan was to hike in about 2 miles, pitch a tent, complete the trail to see Cassidy Arch, and then return by sundown to our site. Well, we packed everything at least 3 miles before we dumped the stuff to figure out where we were by finding the arch. Sundown was coming fast and we were a mile from our packs with no headlamps on really rocky terrain. Not the best plan, right? We hadn't even reached the arch yet when it became clear that the sun was going to win this race. But I couldn't handle not seeing this arch we'd been working so hard for... I mean, this was not an easy stroll. So I checked with Holly, grabbed my camera, and took off running Ninja Billy Goat style. It felt good to run. And then if felt hard to run. But run I did (at least until the straight-up rocks where I more limped and wheezed). I was worried about how late it was, trying not to fall and bust my ankles (can you imagine Holly trying to carry me out?) and trying to stay on the barely-marked trail while going full speed. I was praying. God, I'm trying to persevere through this race. And I'm hoping you're going to make the end of this run pretty awesome. And then I crest a hill in the rock face and the next marker is nowhere to be seen. "What the crap?! Where do I go?" And then I see it - the rock to my left just isn't there. There's this huge opening and as I edge nearer I can see that the drop is straight down several hundred feet. And in front of me is the arch, a bridge really, which the elements left intact over this huge expanse. Oh yeah, no wonder the trail markers stopped. This is the arch. Thanks God.
Well, you'll be glad to know that we did make it back to our packs before we lost the light and even managed to hike back as far as we could to set-up camp for the night. We made bacon for dinner (appropriate to use our frying pan on Frying Pan Trail, no?) and caught some nice views of sunset out in the quiet. I actually had a terrible time trying to sleep - my muscles were all tense from running and the cold. But this is what the trip is about, a bit of risky, getting alone in Creation, and marveling at the things around us. Very cool.