Wednesday May 10, 2023 - Helper, UT to Dinosaur National Monument

The RV Park was great last night. We woke to the Price River scooting by alternating with the van heater coming on every now and then (not too cold last night) and if I was not hard of hearing I would have heard the train nearby going by. We did see a train load of coal go through town last night at dusk so somewhere it is still coal country. They actually call this Carbon County because of the coal I assume.

We stopped at the Happiness Lies Within coffee shop in Helper before heading out. Simple and fancy coffee drinks, big comfy looking leather chairs, chess sets, free wifi, let’s just spend the day here. The kid running the place grew up here in Helper, and he reinforced that the town was really working on getting small businesses going and cleaning up the downtown, as we’d noticed on our walk through town last night to the new brewery. A young couple came in behind us and they drove a 4WD adventure mobile of some kind, so there must be some hipsters living here or driving through.

A nice older woman was unloading her van into her art store so we had a long chat with her. She was originally from Salt Lake City, and she and her husband moved here from Chicago to retire and open the art store. She had been an architect and told us there was a lot of spirit here as well as grant writers to help rebuild the town. We will stop back in Helper some day.

North on RT 191 and a quick turn and a seemingly endless climb over a pass. We passed a ton of tanker trucks coming toward us and our best guess is they were hauling oil, since we saw so many active oil pumpers all day. Again, they must be heading east on I-70 eventually and this is a shortcut.

Just before the oxygen bags dropped down we hit the summit at 9114 ft and started the 8% grade down the other side. There is still snow up here and the streams are all frothing down the gullies with churned up brown, much needed water. Up this high there are not many trees, and with the overcast skies today it felt like driving up Mt Washington in New Hampshire. Kind of barren and gravelly hills.

As we descended the other side it finally opened up again and we went from twisty canyon road to in the lower irrigated green pastures. Lots of irrigation here and they seem to be mostly growing hay for beef I suppose.

We decided to head for Dinosaur National Monument, about 20 miles east of Vernal, UT. They have a campground and we used Milo’s “get into national parks free” card and hit the visitor center. The nice young ranger there was excited we were from Bisbee, as she is a Chiricauhua Indian which is in our backyard. We got the history, but before touring the park we wanted to tie down a campsite. We found the only open campground and there were plenty of great campsites available. Real bathrooms, no shower, water, and nice sites right on the banks of the Green River for $18 (actually $9 with the Senior Pass!!). Getting old is like printing money!

So because of the crazy amount of snow they got this year, a lot of the park is still closed, but the corner we are in is open. A big batch of school kids were in the visitor center which makes sense. What kid doesn’t like dinosaurs?

The Fremont Indians were here from 500 to 1200 and so there were petroglyphs (tapping with sharp rocks on “desert varnish” covered rocks), and pictographs (painting on rock) here. We did not see any pictographs but we did do some short hikes to a lot of petroglyphs. Lizards, bighorn sheep, a guy playing a flute, and a lot of anatomically correct men seemed to be in vogue back then.

Next we found the cabin of Josie Morris who married and divorced 5 times, had a bunch of kids, and moved to live alone from 1914 until she died just short of 90 in 1964. She never had electricity or drove a car, no telephone, and dirt floors (with braided rugs). She raised chickens, pigs, and beef cows, and she did have friends and relatives from Vernal visit her from time to time. Her horse knocked her down on some ice and she broke her hip when she was 89,  crawled back to her log cabin and a few days later, someone came and found her. She died shortly after in the hospital.

The ranger told Deb there was a back story and Deb is looking for the book. I guess she was sort of an outlaw. We went on a wonderful walk into Hog Canyon, which was part of Josie’s ranch.

Last up today was to visit the Quarry Exhibit Hall which is the centerpiece of the whole place. Carnegie wanted some dinosaur skeletons, so one of his paleontologist friends had found some old bones here. They set up the dig site in 1909 and found a huge cache of bones. Many millions of years ago a big river went through here where the dinosaurs hung out, but there was a huge drought and they mostly all died as the river dried up. Later the water came back and all the bones got washed downstream and collected in one spot, all jumbled up, and were encased in mud. Over the next some odd million years, the pile of bones turned to rock, got tilted up as the earth crust heaved up and the erosion took the layers off until one day this guy found one of the bones sticking out. Carnegie paid to have the area excavated and when they removed enough bones so everyone had plenty, Carnegie paid to have the site covered and preserved so the public could come in and see them partially excavated. Lots of authentic bones protected in a zoomy glass building.

Back to the campsite, a little nap and then dinner. We plan to make it to Wyoming tomorrow.

Odo = 6461