Capitol Reef Wandering

This post is kind of a mash up of some miscellaneous things we saw and did.

Wandering around in red rock country is easy. Down the road from our boondocking spot we noticed some cool looking canyons so one day we set out to explore them. We hiked around for about 5 miles to get some good views.

Historic Fruita

We visited Historic Fruita on one of our first days in Capitol Reef and blogged about it here. There are a couple other interesting historical buildings in the area and we stopped to check them as well. First up was the Behunin Cabin. The desire to exercise religious freedom and create new self sufficient communities led many Mormon settlers to this remote part of Utah. The Behunin Cabin in a one room cabin built in 1882 by Elijah Behunin and his family. 15 people lived in it! It wasn’t long before they moved on to a more suitable location. The Fremont River repeatedly flooded the area and flash floods and thunderstorms obliterated their crops often.

The Fruita Schoolhouse is a quaint little building right off the highway. The schoolhouse was used by the Fruita community from 1896-1941. The first teacher, Nettie Behunin, was just 12 years old! Students were full of pranks. Lanterns used during night meetings were stored in the school, and a few enterprising students found that dropping a small piece of calcium carbide, taken from a lantern, into an inkwell produced a reaction that would cause the ink to overflow. If the inkwell was tightly capped, it would explode and spatter ink all over the room. Oh kids.