Thursday, April 10, 2008--Cold and Snowy Cortez

When we got up Thursday morning, we looked outside and saw 3-4 inches of snow! And it was cold!!! The wind was blowing about 15-20 mph. When Bob ventured outside, he saw icicles hanging from the rv!Check out time at the rv park was 11 am. We didn't know if we wanted to go or stay another night. We checked our good pal weather.com and found that it would be warmer at Goosenecks. We decided to wait until closer to check out time, then head for Goosenecks. Everything began to thaw around 9 a.m. so we started packing. We left the park at 11 and went to the gas station next door to check the tires and make sure we were safe for the road. We finally pulled out of Cortez around noon. We drove to Four Corners Monument to get a picture of the geocoin we found. Now we can drop off the geocoin so it can get on its way to its next destination.

The geo coin is a miniature of the monument.
Joyce dug out her heavy jacket Thursday morning, but was roasting by the time we got to Four Corners. It was windy when we crossed into Arizona (drove out the gate of the monument). Bob didn't want the camera to blow over so he set it on the dashboard and he RAN out to get in the picture. From Four Corners we started the drive to Goosenecks State Park near Mexican Hat, Utah. It amazes us how the scenery can change in such a short distance out west! We went from the base of the Rockies to beautiful red sandstone mountains and monoliths!When we crossed into Utah, the red was everywhere!
There was red sand, red hills, red mountains, and monoliths!
We arrived at Goosenecks State Park and it was just like the pictures we had seen! The San Juan River cut through the sandstone and made 'goosenecks.' The park is 1000 feet above the river with no way down to the river. At one time the surface of the river was near the park, but not today! We took our first picture before we got out of the rv!

We had been planning on visiting here for over a year so we had our first toast before we went to explore.

Yes, our campsite is on the edge of the gooseneck area! The gooseneck is prominent on the left in this picture.

We could also see Tabernacle Rock from our site.

This was another view from our campsite.

Here is the rv parked at Goosenecks State Park.

We walked back to the entrance to get our picture with the sign.

We took some more pictures of the goosenecks. In this one you can see more of the colors of the rocks.

We hiked around to see the goosenecks from another vantage point and got a picture of us with Tabernacle Rock in the background.

As we were hiking we kept hearing an airplane, but could never see one. Finally we spotted the plane. It was a low flying B-1 bomber! After 3 tries, Joyce finally got a picture of it!

These are the mountains to the east of our campsite, the swirls of colors were amazing! This picture is nothing to what it really looked like.

As the sun went down, we had a special bottle of German demi sec that our neighbor gave us as a retirement gift. We saved it for this night!

Thanks, Jim. It was perfect!

We know tomorrow will be another day of surprises.