Gifford Barn

• Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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One of the most spectacular places we visited during our trip to southern Utah was the Capitol Reef National Park. I have been reading up about the parks in Utah and this one seems to be the park with least mentions by visitors. So naturally, we only planned a pass through as we wanted to venture into the more famous parks. So we decided to start early from Bryce and do a drive through of Capitol Reef en route to Moab, UT.

My thinking was that since I know least about the park it will be worth a quick visit and if it’s worth a stopover we will make a trip later next year. I didn’t have high hopes but the place completely blew us away. We only did a quick drive around of the scenic drive but the sheer number of stunning vistas were overwhelmingly high. To add to that we later learned from our friendly park rangers about the much more stunning back roads that are a must see. After browsing through some of the images displayed at the visitor center, I was tempted to stay and explore the park instead of heading out to Moab. But thankfully saner thoughts prevailed and we decided to keep our itinerary. But soon I will be back.

Today’s post is a photo of the barn at Gifford farm which lies in the heart of the Fruita valley, a desert oasis. Its appearance is quite sudden and it’s stunning to see the lush green patch among the vibrant red desert landscape. The farm is located at the beginning of the scenic drive and is one of the distinct landmarks of the Capitol reef National Park.

Fruita is the best-known settlement in Capitol Reef National Park.