I was going to let Rob blog about our drive south to Escalante but he’s just too busy with lame things like work.

Sunday after church we started our 3-hour drive to Escalante, Utah. On the way we stopped at a dive for, according to the kids, the best pancakes in the world.

We drove past the red plateaus of Capitol Reef National Park and through the unbelievably cute tree-lined town of Torrey. I think I’d like to stay there next time.

Then we climbed into the pines. I think we slowed down for about 20 deer and 10 cows through these mountains. They were just lining the sides of the road with their young. We reached the top and looked out over the expanse. Wow! Madeleine was even impressed saying, “Wow! It’s so beautiful!”

Down we drove into lower elevations to the Hogsback. I had wanted to make it here for golden hour but it was already getting quite dark by the time we arrived so we couldn’t see much this time. Luckily, we drove back and forth over it a few times over the next few days because this is one of my favorite spots in Utah. We pulled over to the side of the desolate road, turned off the headlights, and watched the lightning in the distance. After a while we decided that we better get to town before the downpour hit us. Not more than a couple of miles later, rain began. No, I correct myself…a faucet was turned on. This happened to be the night of flash floods in St. George and we were witnessing a desert summer thunderstorm in all its fury on our windshield. It was unbelievable. We had to drive 15 mph on a cliff-side road with hardly any site lines. When we were lucky, we could see the water gushing off the hundreds of feet of stone lining the road. After about 25 minutes of this the storm finally started to let up, just as we were leaving the treacherous landscape. What a thrill!

This is another view from the top of the mountain looking down into the terrain below.