Juniper Hot Springs, CO

October 21, 2020. As we were leaving the Dinosaur National Monument, we saw several fields packed with sandhill cranes, with a few Canada Geese thrown in. Those guys seem to make it to every party. These cranes are big and loud. We heard them long before we saw them.

We found a great USGS website that shows a map of all the hot springs in the US, along with their temperatures. But that’s it. We have to then try and find them, determine whether they are on public land, private, or commercial. This one had a temp of 103 degrees F, commercial, with a campground. Well. We drove about four miles down a washboard dirt road and found a run-down hot spring. It had five or six different pools of varying temperatures, but the hottest one was barely warm enough to stay in. We figured 103 degrees is about the temperature of your standard hot tub. Should be pretty good. Now, we figure that 103 degrees is the temperature of the water as it comes out of the ground. Fill a concrete pool open to the air and it’s probably in the low 90s. I guess we look for springs with temps above about 125 degrees from now on. We stayed one night. It was tolerable but we wouldn’t have gone 60 miles out of our way for it (which we did).

Dinosaur National Monument (Scenery), Utah

October 20, 2020. The scenery here is stunning, with amazing rock formations showing various layers of different colors: red, turquoise, yellow, black and brown.

At the end of one of the dirt roads was an old cabin. Sign said it was built in 1914 by a woman named Josie Morris. She moved there when she was forty years old and lived there by herself for fifty years! She built a cabin, chicken house, barns, gardens and corrals. She used a box canyon for one of her corrals (only have to build one side of a fence)!

Dinosaur National Monument (Petroglyphs), Utah

October 20, 2020. We spent this day hiking and driving around looking for petroglyphs. We wonder how they managed to do this. Hanging by their toes, maybe?

Dinosaur National Monument (Dinosaur Bones), Utah

October 19, 2020. We spent a couple of days here looking at dinosaur bones, petroglyphs and the scenery. Because I have so many awesome pictures, I’m splitting this one up also. We wanted to stay here an extra day and hike a canyon trail but the temperature was heading down toward freezing so we left early.
The first place we stopped was at the quarry. The dinosaur bones that have been taken out of this quarry are found in museums all over the world. Sorry, didn’t write them down, but I do remember there are a couple in the Museum of Natural History in Washington DC (I remember this because I have seen them there). They left these bones in situ, about half uncovered, so we can see how they are found in different layers. It must be a real trick to put these back together into one animal!

Little Hole, Green River, UT

October 18, 2020. On the other side of the Flaming Gorge Dam, the Green River Continues. About 5 miles down the road is a charming place called Little Hole. We wanted to stay the night, but it was a day-use only place. The nearest campground was dismal, so we spent the afternoon at Little Hole, then continued south. Right now we are boondocking at a trailhead with a nice view of the valley and 3 bars on Roger. So I figured I would continue the update. Next stop is Dinosaur National Monument and then some hot springs in Colorado. Stay tuned.

Flaming Gorge, Wyoming and Utah

October 18, 2002. After boondocking in our mud hole, we continued south along the gorge. The further south we went, the more gorgeous it got. We went all the way to the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah. It’s hard to get good landscape images with our equipment. They always seem less than the real thing.

After leaving WY, we passed through Manila, UT, and into the Sheep Creek Canyon. Oh, my! So beautiful, and must be where it takes the name, Flaming Gorge.

Weeping Rock Campground, Green River, Fontenelle Reservoir, WY

October 16, 2020. We reluctantly left our little oasis at Salt Creek and wandered south and east to Fontenelle Reservoir. The landscape has changed to high prairie, we are still at over 6,000 feet in altitude. You can see for a million miles. There really is a weeping rock at the Weeping Rock campground, but the really marvelous thing was the Great White Pelicans we saw as we were leaving. They are HUGE. We’ve never seen these before. Except for the yellow-orange beak, and black at the wingtips, they are pure white. The small black ducks in the distance are Canada Geese. Which aren’t small.

It was very windy here so we only stayed one night. We are now in the middle of nowhere in the Flaming Gorge with four bars on Roger. Go figure. We haven’t had a decent cell signal since the Bitterroot Valley. It’s still very windy and we had to go down into a small gorge to get somewhat away from it. There is no view here and the reservoir looks like a mud puddle in the middle of a sandpile. Not worth recording.

Ok, so sunset came and things improved a little. Wind has died down too.

Palisades Reservoir, Snake River, Idaho

October 12, 2020. On our way to Idaho Falls for Alan’s root canal, we passed Palisades Reservoir. It was so beautiful that I took many photos, which I share here.

Salt River, WY

October 11, 2020. We found a lovely spot on the Salt River near Thayne, WY. It was a state fish and wildlife river access for fishing. Not a designated campground. We found a similar problem when traveling in Calliope: if the anchorage is listed in the guidebook, avoid it; look for small places that are not listed or advertised. It’s harder than it looks. Anyway, we stayed here almost a week. Partly because we liked it and partly because Alan developed a toothache. We were lucky that a local dentist could see him right away and we got an appointment that same afternoon in Idaho Falls, Idaho (90 miles). We recuperated here at the Salt River.

Salt River at dawn. Candles reflected in window.

While we were at the Salt River we ran out of drinking water so we went up a canyon to get water from Strawberry Creek. On our way back, we saw this:

Grand Tetons, WY

October 9, 2020. We wanted to camp in the Tetons but, like Jellystone, half were closed and the other half were full. It felt like they were closing and locking the gates both in front of and behind us. So we just took pictures as we drove by. We passed Jackson but kept going because it had signs that said masks were mandatory everywhere, countywide. No thanks. We came into the Snake River Valley and stopped at a campground called East Table Creek. Pine trees and the Snake River. It was actually nice, with some road noise. But then several RVs arrived around dusk, turned on their generators and kept them on ALL NIGHT. Uggh. Didn’t see that coming!