When Denisa called the park ranger to ask if we would have any problems finding a camping spot at Painted Rocks, it must have been hard for him not to laugh. This little campground doesn't take reservations after September 15, and there was only one other trailer here when we arrived. We had our pick of 40 sites! We drove into a spot overlooking the valley, and this was our view from the windshield.
The little bit of water you see in the picture above is what is left of Yuba Lake. We were told that lake levels have been very low for the last 5 or 6 years. A herd of black cattle are now grazing in the middle of the lake.
A local told us that not too many years ago he had driven his boat between the two hills behind Mark. You can still see the water line on the twin hills, but it has been some time since that dry lake bed has seen water that high. Mark is standing on the boat dock that used to be surrounded by water. Now it is just surrounded by a sea of cockleburs.
Likewise, even though Mark is standing in the middle of a very long cement boat ramp . . .
he is still a very long ways from any water.
We did some hiking the first evening we arrived. You can barely see Denisa on the right-hand-side of one of the giant painted rocks.
It seems that we took a lot of pictures of her perched on or beside big rocks, surrounded by puffy clouds floating in blue skies.
We climbed to the top of the tallest hill in the state park.
The views from the top were nice, and we could see where our dried-up lake joined with the larger section of Yuba Lake. We had to read our own blog from two years ago to remember that we had visited there on our first trip through Utah. We are finding that we see so many places that we are already forgetting some of them.
It's getting a little late in the year for Denisa to take pictures of multi-colored flowers that she likes to slip into the blog. So instead she added the multi-colored lichen from the top of the mountain we were climbing.
We also found a chunk of a large egg on the mountain. Based on the curve and size of this piece of the shell, this had to be from a large bird. Are there wild ostrich roaming the mountains of Utah?
The sun was lighting up the mountain-side by the time we were making our way back to the motor home. If there was water in this lake, this place would be stunning.
But with a full lake, we probably wouldn't have gotten our choice of camping spots on a weekend. So we will enjoy our quiet campground and the setting sun that is turning the mountain to gold. Mark is standing in front of that golden rock face.
We made it back inside the motor home, and made ourselves comfortable in the two captain chairs where we normally ride when we are traveling. Tonight they are front row seats to the beautiful sunset filling the sky in front of us. I think we're going to like our stay at Painted Rocks State Park here in central Utah.
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