Today, since we believe our trailer’s systems are all now functioning properly, we were liberated from any kind of maintenance work and were free to go sightseeing. As we pulled into town yesterday, we noted a big upthrust of the earth that looked like a two mile long stegosaurus and damned if that isn’t where Dinosaur National Monument is. We drove over there from our spot at Fossil Valley RV and again were granted free entry due to our Federal Access Pass.
We took the first left after the fee station into the Quarry Visitor Center. From there, you can catch a free shuttle to the Quarry Exhibit Hall. It is a big steel and concrete air conditioned two level structure which houses and large rock bank with all kinds of dinosaur bones sticking out. When you look at some of the massive spine and leg bones you can get a pretty good idea of how big these monsters were. They have vertebra bigger than dinner plates. They have teeth that look like big rows of rifle rounds and talons that look like they would make a pretty good claw hammer head.
We re-boarded the shuttle and went back to our truck at the visitor center. We chose not to go look at the other two roads into the park property since they were pretty long (60 miles, one way) and we came to see the dead monsters. We also felt compelled to reward ourselves since my sister Julie recently informed us there should be a reward at the end of each excursion. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Vernal called Don Pedro’s. Good enchiladas are available here at a reasonable price.
Afterwards, we chose to go up US-191 from Vernal toward Wyoming. This is another example of the wide red line of the map concealing the true, squiggly nature of the road. There are about 10 big switchbacks ascending an 8% grade for quite a ways near the top of the nameless pass which maybe should be named 8298 because that’s how high it is according to our Garmin GPS. Over the top is another long, 9% down grade so brakes were substituted for brawn. The highway continues the descent all the way to pretty close to Flaming Gorge Dam where we turned west on UT-44. In the little squint of a town called Manila, we turned east on UT-43 which became WY-503 after about a mile where we crossed into Wyoming.
WY-503 took us all the way to Green River. Unimpressed there, we drove east on I-80 for about 10 miles to Rock Springs which was maybe a bit less impressive than Green River. In Rock Springs, we turned south again on US-191 back toward Flaming Gorge. It is a beautiful road but we didn’t see anything resembling a gorge or related to flame but we did spot some pronghorn. It is a beautiful drive anyway.
Soon we were approaching the Flaming Gorge Dam and started to notice rock formations of extraordinary colors, shapes and textures along with an enormous dark blue reservoir. 191 eventually passes over the dam and crosses a steel bridge over an arm of the reservoir and from this vantage point it seems plain why they call it Flaming Gorge. The purple/red rock in the afternoon sun almost looks like it is on fire. The water is lovely. The surrounding terrain is magnificent.
We had driven a long ways so Peggy made me get in the pilot’s seat and drive home from the dam. The switchbacks did not seem so terrifying going back to Vernal.
We took pictures at both Dinosaur NM and Flaming Gorge NRA and they can be seen by clicking here