The drive to the park is pretty uneventful and pleasent. We stop at the visitor center just outside of town and it looks really empty. We send Gideon up to see if he can tell what's up and he comes back to let us know that it's closed but he did manage to get a map! So we head off from here for the official park. As we pull into the small town of Baker, we enjoy the charm of the town a bit. There's a church with these beautiful purple flowers framing it and a house nearby made out of an old passenger railroad car and surrounded with sunflowers. There are some more broken down buildings with their own charm as well. We reach the park and take the ridge road immediately to enjoy the views that we came here for. I am driving and Court warns me to keep away from the edges of the road so of course, since there's no one on this stretch of road, I start driving in the other lane. She amends her request to keep away from the edge safely. It's a great drive up the mountain and while it warned us that the road was winding, it wasn't nearly as bad as King's Canyon or the General's Highway. When we reach the peak, we turn around to head back down. There was a small area for hiking but since it was so much higher in altitude and we were having problems previously at lower altitudes we had kind of been hesitant to go on a hike up here. The parking situation solved our apprehension as there was no place to park.
We head down the mountain to visit the visitor center for the Lehman Caves which is part of the park. It is much busier here than elsewhere in the park but still significantly less busy than any of the other parks we've been to. We head in to look at the exhibits, do some shopping, etc. Unfortunately the cave tours have been sold out for weeks in advance so we cannot go on one. The exhibits in the visitor center though go over all sorts of information about them including different animals that you could see there and such. We leave here and start heading out towards our hotel.
The drive to the hotel is a lot of very empty roads so we decide to take another one of the middle of the road pictures, this time with me behind the shutter so that Court can join in. We stopped to get one picture and over the crest of a hill comes a sherrif's car with its lights on. We all pile back in the car and he pulls up next to us to ask us if we were the people that were having trouble with a spare tire. I informed him that we just thought that it was a pretty area and were taking some pictures and he drove off. We keep driving through large stretches of the desert. Eventually we start seeing towns again which is a nice distraction and decide to go get some lunch. Again, there aren't a lot of choices for food here that are open so we yet again opt for McDonald's and head off to the next stop.
We turn back a bit to go through the very small town of Desert which definitely looks like it has seen better days and head out the other side to reach Fort Desert State Park. This is a very old fort that was built back when the Mormon's were just settling in this area and has managed to remain somewhat standing until today. It was pretty interesting to see some of the structure but you could also smell the animal dung pretty heavy. We pack it all in again and head back off to the hotel waiting for the view of Mollie's Nipple, a mountain named by some hard up explorer. We make it to the hotel for the night and check in.
This is the night that I have been waiting for for a while since there is a Hungry Howie's nearby and Court has always said how fondly she remembered their pizza from Tampa. I order the pizza and start driving since it's about the right distance away. On the way I make a bad turn which leaves Abigail and I weaving in and out of the different blocks of Provo. It's actually a very pleasent looking city. We arrive at the Hungry Howie's and in the same plaza there is a HUGE fitness center, a tanning company, a martial arts studio and a yoga studio. Seems like they may have found their market. We grab the food and head back to the hotel where Abby and Court both very much enjoy themselves. It apparently does live up to the memory. Time for some sleep since it's been a couple of long days.