Utah trip

We left Custer State Park October 12th and headed to Utah.  Our first stop was in Vernal Utah, where we stayed for 5 days.  Our first stop was at the Dinosaur National Monument.  Here we saw a huge wall of Dinosaur bones embedded into rock.  Millions of years ago there was a large river here, when the dinosaur died its bones washed down the river.  Some of the bodies were still intact others were scrambled about in the water.  Then one day our earth had an upheaval and what once was the bottom of a river now became a rock wall.  It boggles my mind!  But was so very fascinating to see.

Next we went on a drive in Dinosaur National Park.  On this drive we found many petroglyphs.  Petroglyphs are symbols drawn by prehistoric cultures.  They were chiseled into the patina or desert varnish on stone.  They do not know for certain what each symbol means or why this was done.  But when you travel to the West and Southwest you find them all over. 

There is a State Park Museum in Vernal that tells the history of the area regarding the geology, dinosaurs, prehistoric man, and so much more.  This was a very interesting stop too.

We also drove north from Vernal into the Ashley National Forest.  Here we were in much higher elevation and found ourselves in a pine forest with several beautiful lakes.   Our campsite was in the Steinaker State Park.  We had a beautiful valley and lake view out of our camper.  One of our concerns traveling in the fall was what campgrounds would be open and if they had to turn off the water due to cold nights.  Well at Steinaker they did shut the water off.  Luckily we had a full water tank, so we were just fine.  The weather while we were there was still in the 70's during the day and sunny. 

Also the fall colors we were experiencing in Custer were still evident all during our trip. 

Here are some more of the scenes around Vernal.

Our last stop was at a place called Fantasy Canyon.  I found this place while searching the internet and thought the pictures were so unreal.  Well this place is unreal.  It is an area about 11.5 acres in size.  It is on BLM land with oil wells all around it.  It felt like we were going into nowhere land.  Then we were there.  This place is a dark grey sandstone rock that has been eroded over the years into delicate, eerie, spooky, intriguing shapes.  We walked on the paths around the area at least twice.  A thunderstorm was looming in the distance so we had to get going, plus it was getting dark, and it just did not feel like a place I wanted to spend the night.  I feel this was one of the most intriguing areas we found.  See what you think.....