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Monday, April 18, 2011 - Capitol Reef National Park, Torrey UT

Ridgetop View, Escalante UT, April 17, 2011
Ridgetop View, Escalante UT, April 17, 2011

Time to move out

I've been here long enough. I need a new view fix. Today I drove out into that scene on UT 12 and made my way up to Torrey UT and Capitol Reef National Park, where I ended up at Fruita Campground. I'll stay here a few days, out of contact (there's no cell service here).

Night camp

Site 7 - Fruita Campground, Capitol Reef National Park, Torrey UT

Sweet, Rich Hickory Milk

Hickory was another favorite. Rambling through the Southeast in the 1770s, the naturalist William Bartram observed Creek families storing a hundred bushels of hickory nuts at a time. "They pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid" to make a thick milk, "as sweet as fresh cream, an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially hominy and corncakes." Years ago a friend and I were served hickory milk in rural Georgia by an eccentric backwoods artist named St. EOM who claimed Creek descent. Despite the unsanitary presentation, the milk was ambrosial - fragrantly nutty, delightfully heavy on the tongue, unlike anything I had encountered before.

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