Cortez, Colorado to Vernal, Utah

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Greetings from Dinosaur Land!

We had an incredibly beautiful drive today – again, almost entirely without freeways!! We had a quick breakfast at our BW Turquoise Inn, and hit the road about 8 a.m.

Our route took us first from Colorado in to Utah;







north up through Moab, which is incredibly beautiful, and then we turned northeast and followed highway Colorado 128 next to the Colorado River along its course; absolutely stunning scenery!

We hit the freeway for a very short distance back into Colorado, exiting at Loma (if that doesn’t help, then see Fruita). Lunched at a nice little restaurant in lovely downtown Fruita, then headed north going over the 8,240 ft. Douglas pass.

Back down to the plain, turning left at Rangeley and heading back into Utah and Vernal, our stop for tonight.

Dropped our stuff at the Best Western Dinosaur Inn (room 248; lots of room, nice and clean, but I have to admit that we’re spoiled by flat screen TV’s – which they don’t have here!) and took the “back way” to Dinosaur National Monument; arrived about 3 p.m.

Much has changed since our last visit – probably something like 15 years ago. What makes this whole area so special is that millions of years ago, dinosaurs roamed all over this area. It is theorized that during a catastrophic drought, many dinosaurs died or moved to the area around a local river. Once it started to rain, many dinosaurs were trapped by the river, and were washed downstream -- along with the bones of the already deceased dinosaurs, which all eventually gathered in the area now encompassing Dinosaur National Monument.

What really makes this place so special is that the building was literally built around the hillside – a layer of sandstone encompassing hundreds of real dinosaur bones that has been tilted almost vertically and now is one wall of the structure. However, the original building had not been constructed on a secure footing – and cracks and breaks started to appear shortly after completion. These structural defects got so bad that the building was closed in 2006. It took them several years, but in 2011, the re-built building was finished and open for business – great, as we really wanted to see those bones again!

We had a really good look around – there are two different levels from which to view the bones, and lots of good information. They are still working on some of their exhibits, but the site is really first class. So glad to see!!

Pictures of the Green River near Vernal.





By the time we got back to the BW we were both looking forward to an early evening. As a matter of fact, we had gone through both Tripadvisors and Yelp looking to see where we wanted to have dinner, and the reviews of the 16 or 17 restaurants in town were universally TERRIBLE. The only even slightly acceptable restaurant is, of course, closed on Sunday! So…treated ourselves to Arby’s sandwiches and returned to the room for NFL Pre-Season football and a wonderful peach from a local grocery store.

More tomorrow as we wend our way from Utah through the northwest corner of Colorado and into Wyoming ending up (hopefully!) ultimately at Hot Springs, South Dakota and their Mammoth site!

Much love,
m
xxx