Sunday, April 27, 2008--Traveling to Dinosaur National Monument

Sunday we packed our belongings and headed for Dinosaur National Monument near Jensen, Utah. We backtracked from Fruita, Colorado to Loma, Colorado to find Colorado 139--another scenic route!

The road was a two lane highway that was pretty straight and in need of repair for the first 10-15 miles. Then we started to climb! We headed toward Douglass Pass which is about 8100 feet in elevation. Colorado National Monument is 5300 in elevation. The road seemed to be smoother as we climbed toward the pass. But as we approached the pass, the hairpin curves began! Joyce watched the 'road' on the Topo Map on the laptop so she was able to tell Bob when a major hairpin was coming. Several times we pulled over to let others pass and to cool our transmission.

We made it over the pass and down to the town of Dinosaur. We then headed west on highway 40 into Utah. We stopped at the visitor center-the first we have seen for Utah! The lady gave us information in Dinosaur National Monument and Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.

As we left the welcome center, we turned right and were on the road to Dinosaur National Monument. We stopped in the visitor center to see the bones and to find out if the campground was open. The quarry where the major exhibit is located has been closed since 2006. The building was built on shifting ground and is now unsafe to visit! The foundation and walls have split and shifted. The quarry is the area where you view fossils still in the mountain side!

They had a few fossils on display at the visitor center. Bob stood next to the femur of diplodocus.
Allosaurus's left hand and fingers were also displayed.There was a bulletin board sized display of some other dinosaur information, but not what we expected. Inside the building there was a small room with a few more small displays and a rolling cart with dinosaur bones you could touch and compare with petrified wood. The most interesting display was of dinosaur teeth. They were not as large as one would think for the size of the animal.The ranger told us the campground was open and there were plenty of spaces to choose! Boy, was he right--we were the only other camper besides the campground host. He is at one end of the campground and we're at the other! As we left to drive the scenic route, we stopped at the overlook above the campground. The is our rv among the cottonwood trees. The Green River is beyond our campsite.The scenic route through this section of the park took us to more petroglyphs by the Fremont culture. They differed in that some of them had been colored in with red or blue. If you look carefully, one on the right has a red tunic.

From the petroglyphs we drove to Josie's cabin. Josie was a woman who moved to the area in 1914 when she was in her forties. She built several cabins--this one with the help of her grandson in 1935. She lived in the cabin until her death in 1969 at the age of 90. She fell and broke her hip while feeding her horse! The location of her cabin is remote! The park service is trying to save the cabin as you can see by the new window (and a new roof).


She kept her livestock in two box canyons. All she had to do was build a fence across the entrance and they couldn't get out. We walked into Hog Canyon. The path meandered along a small creek. This is the type of hike we want to do more!
The further back in the canyon you went, the more peaceful! We heard numerous different bird calls and saw wildflowers blooming. It was late in the afternoon when we started our walk, so we didn't go all the way to the end of the canyon--as the sun dipped below the canyon walls the air cooled quickly.

We drove back to our campsite and enjoyed an evening by the campfire. Before we went in, we took a look at the stars. We were able to pick out several constellations. There must be more stars in the western sky or else there is less light pollution out here!