Last of Utah, for now (07/10/24)

 Leaving the heat of Salt Lake City, we headed to nearby Uinta National Forest. We had a spot in mind where we thought we could park- the only issue is we took the wrong road to get there. Partway down the “Left Fork Hobble Creek Rd” we dropped the camper and continued in the Bronco, to check it out. It wasn’t long before we knew we could never make it. So, it was off to the Right Fork Hobble Creek Rd, which got us to the spot we wanted.

It wasn’t as cool here as we were hoping, but we did hike one trail in the national forest- Monks Hollow- a 4.5 mile loop with 900 ft of gain. Unfortunately I started really feeling the heat too much, which didn’t make for a fun trip during the last mile or so.

Resting up the following day we drove over to Strawberry Reservoir.  It is a beautiful lake, but we could have left our swim suits at home. The water temperature was on the frigid side. Oh Well, the Bronco has air conditioning and it was a fun drive.

Both Paul and I commented that his whole area is very green and healthy looking.

Scrambling for a place to be on July 4th can be stressful, but we had already made arrangements to visit our friends Dave and Nancy, in Helper Utah. It was less than two hours from our location, so the drive was easy.

Dave and Nancy used to be RV friends but they are off the road now, and bought a house in the small town of Helper.

Naturally, there are many projects that need to be done, and Paul was ready to jump in with both feet. Unfortunately on one of those jumps he impaled himself on a rusty tomato cage, which, after some calculations(when was his last tetanus shot???) resulted in an Urgent Care visit to get a shot.

On the plus side, we really enjoyed reading the “ pain chart” in the exam room. The nurse said he put it in there because people always said their pain was a “10”   and he would say…well you are conscious. sooooo… then they would say a “9” and he would say, so, like being mauled by a grizzly bear?  Eventually he would get them down to a reasonable description of their pain level.

We had an awesome July 4 with Dave and Nancy, and some of their friends, and took off the following day for our next destination.

Everyone we have talked to who has been to Dinosaur National Monument, on the border of Utah and Colorado, says it is a “must do” so we headed there to do it. We were originally planning on finding dispersed camping, but in keeping with this summer’s seesaw theme, we ended up booking a KOA that had a cancelation. Temperatures were in the mid 90s during the day. The day we arrived, at 3:30, we decided there was no point in sweltering while listening to the air conditioner, so we headed to the visitor center.

We spent an hour or so gazing at dinosaur bones. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure they are important, but they don’t hold much interest for me.

We decided we were better off being on the water, so we booked a one day rafting trip down the Green River for the following day. We were a group of 4 boats, and we shared our boat with a family of 4.

Charlotte and her brother Adrian were the lead paddlers who were responsible for following what our Trip Leader, Sanders, told them to do. The kids did a good job. All we had to do is paddle when they did. Charlotte (age roughly 12) was sitting in front of me, and we chatted quite a bit.

My biggest stress was that she said she had a premonition that she would fall in- so I was holding on to the boat for dear life the whole time, just in case she did. She didn’t.

Our final day in the area was spent hiking and exploring by Bronco. Reading some of the signs at the turnouts on the road can be interesting and entertaining. This area of Utah was explored by Spanish explorers who “discovered” this area for Europe. 

The expedition was called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition, and many things are named after them…Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, Escalante State Park, the town of Escalante, etc.

But that wasn’t his name! His name was Fray Velez, and he was FROM Escalante. Too funny- I never knew that.

What we discovered that day is Mormon Crickets. If you don’t know what they are, they are actually not crickets, but a type of Katydid. I don’t care what their name is, they were pretty gross. They covered the roadway- thousands of them.

Turns out they are cannibals, so when a “friend” gets run over by a car, they all chow down, but guess what happens when the next car comes along? 

I was just happy they don’t fly!

Our hike took us out on a ridgeline, Harper’s Corner, that got narrower as we went along. The end section had fences to make sure no one fell off. Here we could see both the Green River, and the Yampa river.

The views were pretty spectacular.

Hike done we headed down the dirt road that we had seen from the ridgeline. It led to an area at the confluence of the two rivers. Here we could see the confluence of the Green and Yampa River.