9-17-16 - Heat Escape - Day 37

                                                                   Good Morning

We ate steak and eggs for breakfast, then packed our picnic lunch and headed toward Flaming Gorge Dam.  It was a beautiful ride, with 8% grades and lots of curves. We took our time stopping along the way taking pictures.  It got cold, 56 degrees on the summit.

We continued on our beautiful ride to the dam.  We decided to take the walking tour of the dam.  Awesome dam tour guide.  She was very informative, not only about the dam but about other things in the area to see and do.

                                                    Best Dam Tour in Utah

                                                          Feed the fish at the bottom

We left the dam and drove to the Wyoming state line, only about 10 miles. We went back across the dam and went to Red Canyon.  Gorgeous!, and we saw big horn sheep and turkeys.

We continued on our journey to the Sheep Creek Geological Loop, this was an amazing drive.  We made it back to Highway 44 to look at kokanee salmon.   It was 4:30 pm and we hadn't ate lunch yet.  We stood by the Harley and ate our lunch then went to look for the salmon.  We found a few.

We took highway 44 to highway 191 to Vernal then home.  We saw at least 10 mule deer on the way back across the pass.  It was still in the 50's across the summit.  We scooted on down  the 8% grade, 10 curves in a mile, or whatever the sign said.

Of course, when we got home, Fernykat was ready to go outside.  She got cold and went in earlier than us.  We took a few sunset pics and called it a night.

Pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/Eqmw5aZEcyruYTog9

9-16-16 - Heat Escape - Day 36

                                                       Another beautiful day in Utah


It was 45 degrees this morning.  I slept in while Lauren made coffee and warmed up the camper.  I cannot remember ever turning on the heater during the month of September in Mississippi.

Lauren cooked a great omelet.  We had apricot preserves with our omelette, thanks to our good friends.

I thought this morning, as I rolled out of bed that I was a little bit tired.  I had muscles that hurt, but today would be an easy hiking day.   As Clyde would say. "W R O N G!"

When we got to the Quarry Entrance of Dinosaur National Monument, the park ranger recognized my doo-rag from yesterday, (thanks again to my St D Family).  We had planned to hike between Green River Campground and Split Mountain Campground.  She made a call and confirmed that part of the trail was closed at Green River due to a power pole falling.

She told us her favorite trail is the Trail of Silence.  We decided to take the 3.2 mild to strenuous hike.  We were kinda bored for the first half, when we were in the wash, switchbacks, where you couldn't see anything except the red bluff next to it, kind of trail.  All the sudden, it was on.

                                                                    The Wash

                                                                     Friend

                                                              Pano from the top

We crawled, scooted, climbed, and realized why this was the park ranger's favorite trail.  It was absolutely gorgeous and challenging.  The Sound of Silence song kept playing in my head.

We made it back to the Harley, and rode to Split Mountain Campground, had our picnic snacks, and went on the 1.5 mile trail.  It was pretty and very informative.

informative signs along this trail

                                                  Some of the signs were from grade schoolers

                                          Viewing the view, near Split Mountain boat launch

We both have to say the 3.2 and 1.5 mile trails seemed a lot longer.  When we got back to camp, we had been over 7 miles each according to fitbit.

The ride back was 70 degree weather in shorts and short sleeves.  It was wonderful beautiful day!


Pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/H9x5mt6jH7p7sTp66

9-15-16 - Heat Escape - Day 35

                                                     Beautiful Day for exploring


I woke up at 9 am this morning.  I felt really guilty about sleeping so late, until Lauren said he had got up at 8 am.  We were both tired from the 5:30 am wake up call from the hail storm yesterday.

Being we got up so late, after drinking our coffee, we decided to have lunch before we went hiking in Dinosaur National Monument.  As we were eating, we had a knock on the door.  Jim Carver stopped by.  We had a great visit.

We took the the asphalt queen on the gravel road to Josie Morris' cabin and hiked the Box Canyon and Hog Canyon trails.  Very pretty.  I kept thinking how strong Josie must have been to have lived off the land in the middle of nowhere until she was 90 years old.  OMG!!!

                                                             Josie's cabin

                                                                    Hog Canyon trail

                                                               end of Box Canyon trail

On the way back down the dirt road we stopped and took a hike up the hill to find petroglyphs.  It was addictive, the more we found, the more we wanted to find.  We had to be careful as we were looking up the hill side to watch our footing.  Lauren was, (as always,) more adventurous than me.  He went on the little goat trail around the side of the mountain to see what was on the other side, as I was scooting back down on all fours on the loose gravel heading back down.  He saw a beautiful view of Split Mountain and then passed  me by on the way down.   As I have said before, I have a fear of heights.

                                                                       Pano

We thought about going back to camp after we had hiked about 5 miles.  We stopped at the visitor center and checked out the Fossil trail.  It was kind of boring  until we saw a Dinosaur spine in the hill.  Again, we were amazed at the excitement of looking up the hill and finding dinosaur bones.  We now have a new past time, petroglyphs and paleontology.  Who would have thought it??

                                                                     Spine

                                                                         Leg???

                                                                  Another large bone????

                                                             Fish scale fossils (small circles)

When we returned home, Ferny had to come outside. She kept patting, digging, and exploring under our outside rug.  Who knows, maybe she is "digging up bones," she may become a cat paleontologist.

Pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/vHLnKpK6JBfUBC9S9

9-14-16 - Heat Escape - Day 34

                                                              Our wake up call (hail)


It was a nice relaxing sleep last night.  The only concern I had was, if,  I might invade Fernykat's space while she is sleeping at the foot of the bed, by Lauren.  She does bite, (gently,) if I make a mistake and invade her space.

A little after 5 this morning,  I woke up and thought I was in the pine trees of Timberlake with the pine cones hitting the side of the camper.  Only problem, I'm not at Timberlake and we are in a campground with no trees.  Then, it sounded like we had fireworks showering down on the roof of the camper.

All three of us jumped out of bed.  All of us running around, then Fernykat headed back to the closet. It was hailing.  We were sure it was a least golf ball size then Lauren opened the door and it was only about the size of a dime.  Thank goodness.

We also heard a flock of geese honking as the hail was hitting the top of the camper.  Lauren said a few choice words about the hail and the geese.

This afternoon, we went to Vernal and ate at a Chinese restaurant, and did some shopping.  By the time we got back to Jensen, the sun was a shinning.

We rode to the Quarry Entrance of the Dinosaur National Monument.  We had heard that the dinosaur fossils are awesome.  Words cannot describe what it feels like to be looking at at all those fossil bones from billions of years ago that are in that hill.  Too many emotions to write about. If you are ever in the area, you really need to experience this place.

We ate a steak and baked potato for supper tonight then watched the clouds cover and uncover the full moon tonight.  This was so much more relaxing than the start of our day.

Pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/Qq2Ry8H3933p9DMA9