We moseyed up to northeast Utah to a park east of Vernal. The RV park was just before the Colorado border and at the edge of Dinosaur National Monument. Even though the monument is named for the bones found there, the quarry area covers just a few acres. The monument is 80 miles wide and continues well into Colorado. It is a wild land of mountains, canyons and deserts. Unfortunately, for most of the summer, the smoke from the forest fires in California obscured the views so I have few long range photos.
The covered dinosaur bone quarry area
We spent most of our time here doing our favorite thing, exploring the back country. Even in national monuments we can find the type of roads we like to travel. These photos were taken in an area of the monument named Island Park.
There are many rock art panels in the monument.
The lizard at a 45 degree angle is over 6 feet long. It must have taken many days to peck it into the rock. There are at least 5 lizards in this panel and 4 humanoid figures.
On the road to the Echo Park section
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A different style of petroglyph
We have been looking for another RV but we decided that this one might be a bit to rustic for our taste.
McKee Springs Petroglyphs
Split Mountain Area
During our back country travels in Utah and Wyoming, there was seldom a day that we did not see pronghorn.
I always like to learn one interesting fact each year. ( I don't want to overtax myself) My fact for this year is..... wait for it..........
a cow cannot stand on 3 legs.
I bet you didn't see that one coming. Why would anyone care you may ask? Back in the pioneer days when they used oxen as draft animals, they had to shoe them like horses to protect their hooves. With a horse you just lift one leg to shoe it. With an oxen, they had to make a log structure with slings to slide underneath the ox to support it while they put on the shoes. Anyway, I digress. Back to our travels.
We moved to near Pinedale, Wyoming, one of the most isolated towns in the U.S. There is only one highway through town. The drive northwest to Jackson, the nearest town that has any shopping, is 75 miles over a mountain range. The drive south to Rock Springs is 95 miles.
Pinedale is mostly a typical tourist town but it has no fast food or national chain restaurants. There must have been some sort of town ordinance against them. It was strange to drive around town and not see any golden arches.
I have always been interested in the mountain man era. The Pinedale area was a center of mountain man activity. They held 6 rendezvous a few miles west of where the town now stands. The town now boasts a very nice mountain man museum.
In the museum is a rifle that belonged to the famous mountain man Jim Bridger.
West of town is an overlook of the rendezvous site. It has some interesting signs.
Another interest of ours is the pioneer trails of the great wagon train migrations, The Lander cutoff portion of the Oregon Trail passes south of Pinedale.
Thousands of wagons traveled on this old trail. Would you have been on one of them? I might have been.
There are lots of Osprey nests in this area. This one was in our RV park.
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We moved east to Thermopolis, WY, famous for its hot mineral springs.
Pat soaking in a hot springs pool in our RV park
After a few days in Thermopolis, we headed east toward Indiana and Pat's sister's farm near Logansport. We try to not travel interstate highways. We travel the backroads and enjoy the countryside and the small towns. Some small towns have places for RVs to park to encourage people to stop and shop in their town. Few of them offer a place as nice as this one in Warsaw IL on the Mississippi River.
Thanks for your interest in our travels.
