and then plummeted down with 8% grades. It was a long series of switchbacks to get us down out of the Uinta Mountains. We had never seen a series of highway signs that counted down the switchbacks for us. According to the yellow sign, we still have 9 more switchbacks ahead.
That brings us down to the delightful little town of Vernal, Utah. This is a bit of a tourist stop for many people, and the town is beautifully outfitted in overflowing flower baskets all up and down the main drag.
We didn't stop in Vernal this time, as we are headed to the Dinosaur National Monument down the road. But we have lots of questions about this park. For example, "Why is there several entrances, and which one is best?" After doing some research, we decided to visit at the west entrance, located in Utah. There is also a east entrance in Colorado, and a very remote north entrance from Wyoming. We parked the motor home in Jensen, Utah, and headed to the west entrance of Dinosaur National Monument in the car. The star of the show here is the Quarry Exhibit Hall, shown in the picture below. This building was actually built over the hill where thousands of dinosaur bones had already been excavated. We could see the hill from the outside as we unloaded from the shuttle bus that transports visitors from the park entrance.
Inside the building and on the second floor, we could look down on the hill that still holds around 1500 dinosaur bones. That leads to more questions like, "Why are there so many dinosaur bones here?" A helpful sign explained that this was once an ancient river. At one time a long drought killed many dinosaurs in this dry river channel. Then the returning rain floods drowned more dinosaurs and swept all the bones downstream to this river bottom. They piled up in the sand and mud with perfect conditions to preserve them.
Down on the first floor, one section was wide open to visitors, with permission to actually touch the dinosaur bones that are still in their original position in the side of the hill.
Other bones are stacked above and below. Other questions come to mind like, "How many dinosaurs are represented in this hill?" Paleontologists have collected bones from almost 400 different dinosaurs already. When they stopped excavating to leave this hill for visitors to experience, they estimated that there are around 1500 more fossil bones remaining from about 100 different dinosaurs.
It's amazing to see dinosaur backbones that are still aligned and in their original position embedded in the sandstone.
We can't help but wonder, "What did these dinosaurs look like?" Most of these bones are from four different dinosaurs, and they had models of them in a display cause. The human figures in the case give some idea of the size of these big guys.
In this display the bones are joined together to show the size of this smaller dinosaur found here.
Most people will leave this park after walking through the quarry exhibit hall. But we're not "most people," and we noticed that there is a scenic drive that continues past the visitor center at our west entrance. That road took us beside rock cliffs varnished darker over time.
When we stopped and looked closer, we found petroglyphs--areas where the darker varnish had been pecked away to make ancient art that looked like the many lizards we are seeing today.
We also found trail heads for hikes along this road. We chose the 3.2-mile "Sound of Silence" trail because we could see the interesting rock walls that we would be hiking towards.
It's hard to tell how big those rocks are from a distance. So of course Mark will oblige and climb right up beside the biggest one. You can barely see his six-foot-frame on the right hand side of the picture below.
The first section of the hike was really fun. The red and white rocks seemed to alternate on different sides of the dry creek bed we were hiking in. We took a series of pictures throughout the hike, and one of us is in each picture just to show the size of our scenic surroundings. But sometimes we're hard to spot. Here's a clue: Look in the left center.
Here's a clue: Bottom center.
Clue: Bottom left-hand corner on the trail
Sometimes the person in the picture is easier to spot. This was a beautiful hike, with rugged red hills right next to slick rock white hills. That white hill on the left is actually a mountain. We'll see Split Mountain up close later.
As we turned the loop back towards the car, we couldn't help but notice that a big storm system was heading our way. Those tall white clouds certainly were beautiful against the blue sky.
We bought the "Sound of Silence Trail" guide that explained the 16 different sign posts that we would pass on this trail. We were about finished with our hike when we read the introduction to #15.
Words like "fit and adventurous" perfectly describe Mark, so he was all in for this optional side trip. The only problem was that he started his climb a little early, and found himself in a very adventurous climb among those rocks with no easy route going up or down.
After he was gone for some time, Denisa found the correct path up. Totally out of character for her, she headed up all by herself on that "sloping rock stretching to the sky" in the description. She was planning to surprise Mark by showing up at the top. But she was surprised to find he wasn't there because his way was blocked. So from his perch on another rock, he took this picture of her at the top where the guide book intended for us both to be. If you're having a hard time finding her . . .
we'll zoom in a little. She's a little easier to spot with her arms flailing in victory on her high perch.
Most people come for the dinosaur bones, but this national monument has so much more. Our scenic drive had turned to a gravel road, as we continued deeper into the wilderness. Now we had more questions, including "Who is Josie Morris?" After being married five times, she settled down in this little cabin that was miles from anywhere and became a local legend. She lived here by herself, with no electricity or running water. She raised her own food and seldom left her property until she died at the age of 89 in 1964.
A hiking trail that started at her cabin led us to this box canyon. This is the Hog Canyon, where she rounded up her livestock.
With tall canyon walls on three sides, it made an impenetrable corral once she closed the fence at the opening of the canyon. Today we looked up past those tall walls to see a beautiful blue sky to our north.
We were at the end of a long gravel road, and at the end of a hike that ended in a canyon, so we were certainly surprised when our phone rang. We couldn't believe that we had a phone signal in such a remote place! It was from our son, and we got to face-time with him and our granddaughter. What a great place to spend some family time!
We made our last stop on the way back to the visitor center. We wanted to see the Green River, that cuts through this valley. This is the same river that we saw at the Flaming Gorge yesterday, so it has been carving beautiful canyons all over this part of the country.
We read that this is a great rafting river. Today we watched as a large group was getting their rafts off the river right before the impending storm hit. They had been running the rapids for four days, and they looked glad to be on dry ground.
Besides seeing the river, the other reason for this stop is to see Split Mountain up close. We had a questions about why it was called Split Mountain. We found that it is unusual for a river to split through a mountain instead of meandering around it, but that's what happened here.
We had seen Split Mountain from a distance on top of our first hike today, so now it seems our day at Dinosaur National Monument has come full circle. So we left the park and picked up the motor home, and headed on down the road.
People have asked how we determine our route when we travel. After coming out of Canada and seeing seven national parks there, we have skipped past the national parks in the United States that we have already visited. So this trip has been a series of connecting the dots between lesser known national monuments that we have really enjoyed. In the past weeks we have visited Craters of the Moon, Fossil Butte, and now Dinosaur National Monuments. They have led us to ask many questions about the wonders God has made.
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