out of practice

 Beluga held her comfortable temperature through the night and we all had a good sleep.   Today, after lunch, we decided to drive aout 15 miles north to see to the Parowan Gap Petroglyphs.

We took Utah 130 through large, flat hay fields bordered by the imposing Black Mountains to the east.   

A ridge of lower mountains, called (I think) the Red Mountains, began to rise in the middle of the flat valley about 15 million years ago.  

 I won't go into the complicated formation of the "gap", but suffice it to say a deep wind gap formed  and provided large, flat, desert varnish covered sandstone boulders that were condusive to the carving and chiseling of Native American petroglyphs.

These petroglyphs represent a long period of use by many different Native cultures, starting about 1000 years ago.  Their meaning isn't completely understood.

Archeologist debate whether they portray actual occurrences (hunts, births, wars) or have religious significance.   Regardless, they're a priceless history of ancient cultures and  are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

We soon discovered we were out of practice at this exploring and picture taking.     All the pictures above were shot with my camera set on "close up".    grrrrr.    Dave usually asks me whether I have the camera on the right setting whenever I start to take shots.    He's out of practice and didn't ask.   I'm out of practice, I didn't look.....

We also didn't remember to bring hats and proper shoes for wandering around in the rocks and excessive heat.    Again, we're out of practice.       Needless to say we were very very overheated by the time we got back into the Jeep.   We did remember to bring plenty of water so we're not completely hopeless. We'll get back in the swing pretty soon.

On our way home we drove along Little Salt Lake, a completely dry lake bed,  shimmering in the hot sun.  Who knew there was a "little" Salt Lake?

It wasn't a long day, but the heat sapped us.    All either of us could think of was taking a nice long nap when we got home - so.....we did!

Up into the mountains and the Dixie National Forest tomorrow....