Almost home

We stayed in Monticello for two nights, did nothing while there except relaxed and got ready for the next few weeks.   

Our next stop was in Dolores, Colorado - near Cortez.    We had a beautiful site at The Views RV Resort and man, did we have views!    Only one channel on the television and sparce internet coverage, but beautiful views and a huge, pretty site.

Ute Mountain from our site

One morning I opened the bedroom shades and saw this little sweetie looking right at me!

bedroom view

In addition to exploring the area we enjoyed second cup and happy hour outside behind our site, watching the clouds cover and then expose Ute Mountain.     Lewis enjoyed watching the bunnies that lived in the underbrush.

Lew keeps watch while we enjoy a glass of wine in the shade

One day, before the expected rain, we followed FS rd. 526 from the little, quirky town of Dolores up into the mountains toward Norwood.    We decided not to go all the way, however, because the clouds were building and the road was dirt.

It was a great drive, up through the green pine forest and out into the open at higher elevations.    Communities of bright yellow Aspen lived alongside beautiful orange and red ground cover type shrubs growing densely up the mountainsides.

We stopped alongside the very low Groundhog Reservoir to eat our lunch.  

boat launch!

 Watching over us was the very distinctive Lone Cone.....

Lone cone

After lunch we did a bit more exploring before turning around to try and beat the gathering rain clouds.

I'm going to stop this blog right now and pick it up again later.   The internet is fighting me and I'm afraid I'm going to lose it completely very soon.    Stay tuned to see more of our trip!  

 

overload

We stopped in the Helper/Price area of Utah in order to drive through the Nine Mile Canyon petroglyph "outdoor museum"  It contains some of the best preserved examples of Native American petroglyphs starting with the Fremont people in  950 A.D. through more "modern" peoples of the 1600's.    There were initials from the Buffalo Soldiers who built the road, and early settlers.  I had read about in friend's blogs and it's been on my list for quite awhile.

Since we had two days, we took yesterday morning to just relax and enjoy our pretty site and then spent the afternoon just getting to know the area a little.  

our sweet spot in tiny Blue Cut RV (12/23)

One of our favorite things to do is just turn off the pavement and follow an interesting looking dirt road to see where it goes.     Yesterday afternoon we did just that and had a very pleasant afternoon.

 Evidently there had been a pretty good rainstorm here in the last few days and there was plenty of mud in the usually dry stream beds.

   Today we got an earlier start, packed a lunch and headed towards Wellington and the turn off for the Nine Mile Canyon.    The  Canyon drive is actually more like 50 miles long, further if you continue past the end of pavement,  but by the time we got to that point we were both on extreme overload.   Our necks were stiff from craning them to scan the sandstone cliffs, our eyes were tired from looking and looking for images.    Is that a drawing - or is that just a lichen pattern?    Some of the pictographs were close to the road, easy to see and some were high above, binoculars needed high.   Some were extremely clear and some were very faded.    Our minds were numb from seeing people, and animals, and symbols carved into or painted on the sandstone by people over 1000 years ago.   What were they saying, what were they seeing all that time ago?

 

 The owner of our campground gave me a very rudimentary, barely readable mile marker guide to help us locate some of hundreds of prehistoric petroglyphs and pictographs.    She also gave me her own, personal take on the meaning of some of these strange representations.     While archeologists and historians don't really know the exact meaning of them, she felt strongly that they were pictures of aliens and their crafts as they encountered native animals, snakes, big horn sheep, etc.      She showed me (on her phone) several examples and shared her rational.    Interesting.

We just marveled at them for what they were, windows into the past.

   

The scenery was astonishing also.   We swiveled back and forth between rock art and the soaring, layered walls of the canyon.    Added to the mix was the fact that most of the way was free range and we needed to be mindful of large, black roadblocks when we were driving and gushy cowpies when we were bushwhacking and not necessarily looking where we were putting our feet.

Our last panel was called The Great Hunt.  It is said to be a representation of a real Big Horn Sheep hunt.

As we were walking to this panel we saw the results of a very recent flood event.   Debris was jammed into all the fences and there was a build up of mud that almost covered a stone bench in front of The Great Hunt.    We were very very glad we hadn't started up the canyon in the rain.......

It's been a wonderful two day stay here, we're so glad we stopped at this out of the way spot.   We're on our way tomorrow, next, a quick stop in Monticello, Utah.

Here is totally unrelated picture for Gramma Pamma.   Lewis performs his patented licky lick procedure on baking dish before it gets officially washed.

Utah

 I forgot to show you one last photo from Henrys Lake.   If you know me, you know that I rarely ever see a sunrise.   I'm sure they're always pretty and I know lots of people enjoy them, I'd just rather sleep!    I did manage to see this one, however, and I loved it.   Henrys Lake saying goodbye!

We stopped in Tremonton, Utah for a few days to explore the huge Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and do a bit of housekeeping and grocery shopping.    The ever present housekeeping and food shopping.....     

Dave had a serious hankering for a hamburger and french fries....perhaps it was reading Gay's blog that put it in his mind.    No Five Guys in Tremonton or anywhere close so I found a place that I thought would fit the bill.    Peach City Diner in nearby Brigham City.   It was on the way to the Refuge and had outside seating so it was the first stop of our day.

The burgers were delicious as were the fresh cut french fries and homemade fry sauce!   The day was sunny and warm so sitting outside was delightful.

We could see the spire of what we were pretty sure was the Temple, so after lunch we drove down pretty, Sycamore lined Main Street to see it.

We got a real bonus.....We found the Temple, and right across the street stood the beautiful Brigham City Tabernacle, built in 1897.

What beautiful buildings they both were, standing in places of prominence.   I have to admit that we were both drawn to the old Tabernacle rather than the more stark Temple.

After a little stroll around we got back into the Jeep to head for the Wildlife Refuge.

"World's Greatest Wild Bird Refuge"?   I'm not sure.    We stopped at the Visitor's Center and then took the 12 mile auto tour through the marshes and waterways.    

We didn't see many birds other than the normal swallows (zooming around eating the everpresent and annoying midges).    

There were a few white pelicans, and many Western Grebes diving and eating in the deeper waters.  It was fun watching them dive, disappear  and come up with dinner!

We're sorry to say that our visit to the "refuge" was a disappointing one, not because of the wildlife we saw, but disappointing nonetheless.    I'll leave it at that.

Today Dave and Beluga fought the strong winds to get us safely to our next stop in Helper/Price, Utah.

This is the view out my window today - Blue Cut.   Exploring Nine Mile Canyon is on our agenda tomorrow or Tuesday.    Stay tuned.