July 8, More Utah

I really thought that I would give you all a break from the rock pictures. But, I hate to say it, there was a gorgeous view around every bend as we came down out of the Ashley National Forest today. I will certainly say that if anyone is looking for a great place to vacation, this could be one for your list. There is the Flaming Gorge reservoir, with boating and camping, and the camping in the NFS camp grounds, which I thought were pretty nice. I just wish there were hook ups.

Sad to leave such a beautiful place.

Here is the campground we stayed at last night.

We didn't go through so much road cut today, but there were still plenty of opportunities for me to kick some rocks around looking for those promised fossils. I still never found any! But apparently there are tons of them out there! At least that is what the signs say. And there were new signs that we didn't see yesterday.... I have been a rock hound for years, but never found much interesting. Except the time Mickie Dye and I wandered around the bed of Lake Whitney when it was down really low.... we found some cool stuff then!

I really wanted to find some of this!

 


So, since there were stunning views around so many corners of the road, I guess I will have to bore you with more pictures of the awesome scenery.

Gotta have a river/creek of the day!

The windswept rock formations were amazing.

This was a reservoir outside of Vernal.

View from the top looking south.

Also looking south towards Vernal.

Stunning rock formations!

Can you see that canyon? Just beyond that is the phosphate mine!

Jeff didn't get out as early as he wanted, I think, but he still managed to see a lot of deer out there. I have not seen any in the forest, yet...

Hard to snag a pic of them, they are so quick!

We even met some people out there in the forest that were trying to reclaim some parts of an area that had been torn up by ATV's. Apparently the vehicles were not staying on the gravel road. They were very nice, and had been out there at it all weekend!

On the way down the mountain(s) after leaving Ashley National Forest, there were some interesting things. I discovered that my brakes smelled hot after coming down quite a ways. It was a pretty steep and continuous descent. I'm glad I stopped every couple miles to wait for Jeff!

This is where the brakes got hot. I ended up downshifting
and going so slow I was irritating other drivers!

They actually set off some blasts while we were in
the area. 

Once again, it was fairly simple to find the Flower of the Day. I even managed to get 3 different varieties in one pic!

 

Vernal is a nice surprise. It is large enough to have a decent downtown "Main Street" area, a Walmart, and a really nice but expensive laudromat. We are staying at the Fossil Valley RV Park, which is right in town. Just a few blocks away from their main street area, and it is shady and nice. There is a McDonald's across the street, for coffee and Jeff's breakfast sandwich, and there are 7-11's here! That means I can use the ATM for Citibank. There were none in the last 2 states...

Here are some of Jeff's thoughts about today:  "I can't believe my bad luck. Today's route dropped me 3000 feet out of the pine trees back into the desert. That would be so bad if tomorrow I wasn't entering Colorado where I have 11000 feet passes. Hills in my future!"

Jeff had some definite thoughts about Wyoming, as well. "seeing that I am almost out of Utah...what did I think about Wyoming.

We did not hit the garden spot of Wyoming...we were in the southern section only
People love to pass...one in five cars were passing. Did I use the term "car"...the trucks passed as well.
They just started selling fireworks in the state
roads are more like Texas than Oregon or Idaho. Not bad, just not great either
I was eaten alive by mosquitos...that was my defining memory of the state
The nicest town that I was in was built by a mining company...Kemmerer. Also the birth place of JC Penney's. I loved that town
Green River is a town that spent a ton of money...dozens of pieces of art and benches on the road up the mountain out of the city. They also built a skate park and white water kayak park. Lots of effort to upgrade the city...they even got a McDonald's They still have a long way to go, but what a great start
Did I mention the mosquitos To normal people that would not matter as you'd just be driving your car as there was nothing, sorry Opal, you are nothing, out there where they were the worst.
The scenic byway was barren desert...nothing scenic about that!
They do not have recycling anywhere except for Opal..and that is all Opal had, a church and a waste company.
Sorry, bad section of the state to visit...I was very happy to leave...I also had two roads that I planned to take that did not exist
The few people that I talked to were very nice, no big surprise there...everybody is nice in rural America. It takes city folk to really piss you off"
Sorry, Wyoming. If we had visited Yellowstone or even Jackson, I think we would have liked you a lot more!

I think we have finally fallen into a pattern that seems to be working. Heck, we are a third of the way across the country now! It's about time we got into a rhythm. Jeff's dog bite seems to be healing, also. The dogs seem to be doing ok, but they still have bouts of diarrhea sometimes. And Zada keeps searching for crap on the ground which inevitably makes her toss her dinner. And they sleep a lot, because it is warm in the coach.

I wanted to start inserting a video in here. It would of course be a link to youtube, but many of you are not on Facebook and therefore miss the Video of the Day from each of us. So, here is one...

 http://youtu.be/vkYgdv0HFfw

So to all you that have missed the Mailbox of the Day, we found one!