Jurrasic lark
After being disappointed by the distinct lack of dinosaurs at Hagerman 
Fossil Beds last week, we headed this week to a place on the Utah/Colorado border that surely had to have some – it is, after all, called Dinosaur National Monument. I needn't have worried. This area is so rich with dinosaur fossils that, as well as digging up enough to keep several big museums happy, they have 
also been able to do the most amazing thing – they have left a whole cliff face of exposed bones, just as they were found, and put a building around it for your viewing pleasure. There are hundreds of fossilised bits of several different species of dinosaur jutting out of the rock and you can even go up to the 
wall and touch them. It's a brilliant idea and was all the far-sighted brainchild of the chap who originally found them, way back at the beginning of the 1900s. Top bloke. Although, according to our guide, there were so many fossils here that he apparently got bored of finding Stegosaurus back plates and used to just toss them aside to look for other dinosaurs! As you'd expect, the two nearest towns to the Dinosaur National Monument are full of dinosaur-based imagery, shops and street names. 
One of the towns is simply called Dinosaur. You can't blame them for cashing in I suppose but it can be a little unnerving turning a corner and being confronted by a giant pink Diplodocus.
Just down the road at Red Fleet State Park we were told there were some dinosaur tracks preserved in the rock. It was quite a walk over tricky terrain to get to them but we decided to
make the effort. The trail to the tracks is marked by black dinosaur footprints painted onto rocks and at first it seemed like a novel idea but it does kind of build up your expectations of what you're going to see. The reality is very different. There was one mark in the rocks that I could say, hand on heart, did actually look a bit like it could have been a dinosaur track. As for the 
other dimples, cracks and holes that the signs were telling us were footprints… well, quite frankly they could have been anything. Whoever found these "dinosaur tracks" must have had a pretty vivid imagination – or maybe been experimenting with some sort of hallucinogenic mushrooms – because what he said he could see and what I was looking at were far from the same. We trudged back to the van leaving our own footprints for future generations to ponder over.
Next, we went to see something that is indisputably spectacular. Arches National Park is simply
one of the most amazing places you could ever let your gaze fall upon. Not bad for a bunch of old rocks. It is home to incredible rock formations and beautiful sandstone arches, created by the erosive power of nature over millions of years. You could be looking at a gigantic boulder perched on top of a spindly sandstone pillar one moment and walking through a perfect arc of red stone the next. Incredible. And literally 
just across the road is another incredible place, Canyonlands National Park. If Arches has the most unbelievable rock formations then Canyonlands must be home to some of the most unbelievable views. I might be going out 
on a limb here but I'd say it's possibly more stunning than even the Grand Canyon. This place has canyons within canyons that stretch out into a vastness which is mind-numbing. In fact it's hard to get any sense of scale at all until you see something
familiar like a tiny microscopic speck of a jeep 
driving through the desert below. And why would there be a jeep hurtling through this land of wonder? I'll tell you…
We inadvertently chose to visit Arches and Canyonlands during the busiest time of the year for this area. We managed to arrive during some sort of enormous off-roaders' jamboree called "Jeep Safari" which meant that the two parks, and the nearby town of Moab, were overrun with petrol heads driving some of the most unnecessarily outlandish vehicles ever devised. Jeeps, trucks and buggies, with ever more preposterously out-sized wheels, growl around the surrounding desert, kicking up huge dust storms and then chug into town wearing their dirt like a badge of honour. It did look like fun though! Moab was 
awash with these things and the people who drive them. People who, for the most part, wore vests, sported moustaches and seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time standing around discussing tyres. And the men were just as bad.
Steamboat springs, in contrast to Moab, was very quiet and very cold. It is way up in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and, as is inferred by the name, is home to lots of natural hot water 
springs. These springs were the reason we were there and the reason why, at 6pm on a freezing cold evening at 7000 ft, I found myself getting undressed and donning a pair of swimming shorts. We chose the Strawberry Park springs where you can sit in 40°C pools of water in the middle of a snow covered forest. As the stars came out above us, the sensation of sitting in such hot water with such cold air around us was strangely pleasant. Less pleasant, however, is the sensation of leaving the warm pools and tiptoeing 
around, 
half-naked in near-arctic temperatures, desperately looking for your trousers in the dark. Just to illustrate how cold it was, I have included a picture of the icicle we found hanging from the tap INSIDE our RV! Brrrrr.
BURGER OF THE WEEK
At Big House Burgers in Steamboat Springs I had something called Saul's Slammer. It was a buffalo-meat burger served open face on Texas toast with 
jalapeno pepper jack cheese, applewood smoked bacon and a fried egg – all covered with pork green chilli. It also came with sweet potato fries which was a nice touch. This was an epic burger and might well be a hard one to beat.
Fossil Beds last week, we headed this week to a place on the Utah/Colorado border that surely had to have some – it is, after all, called Dinosaur National Monument. I needn't have worried. This area is so rich with dinosaur fossils that, as well as digging up enough to keep several big museums happy, they have 
also been able to do the most amazing thing – they have left a whole cliff face of exposed bones, just as they were found, and put a building around it for your viewing pleasure. There are hundreds of fossilised bits of several different species of dinosaur jutting out of the rock and you can even go up to the 
wall and touch them. It's a brilliant idea and was all the far-sighted brainchild of the chap who originally found them, way back at the beginning of the 1900s. Top bloke. Although, according to our guide, there were so many fossils here that he apparently got bored of finding Stegosaurus back plates and used to just toss them aside to look for other dinosaurs! As you'd expect, the two nearest towns to the Dinosaur National Monument are full of dinosaur-based imagery, shops and street names. 
One of the towns is simply called Dinosaur. You can't blame them for cashing in I suppose but it can be a little unnerving turning a corner and being confronted by a giant pink Diplodocus. Just down the road at Red Fleet State Park we were told there were some dinosaur tracks preserved in the rock. It was quite a walk over tricky terrain to get to them but we decided to
make the effort. The trail to the tracks is marked by black dinosaur footprints painted onto rocks and at first it seemed like a novel idea but it does kind of build up your expectations of what you're going to see. The reality is very different. There was one mark in the rocks that I could say, hand on heart, did actually look a bit like it could have been a dinosaur track. As for the 
other dimples, cracks and holes that the signs were telling us were footprints… well, quite frankly they could have been anything. Whoever found these "dinosaur tracks" must have had a pretty vivid imagination – or maybe been experimenting with some sort of hallucinogenic mushrooms – because what he said he could see and what I was looking at were far from the same. We trudged back to the van leaving our own footprints for future generations to ponder over.
Next, we went to see something that is indisputably spectacular. Arches National Park is simply
one of the most amazing places you could ever let your gaze fall upon. Not bad for a bunch of old rocks. It is home to incredible rock formations and beautiful sandstone arches, created by the erosive power of nature over millions of years. You could be looking at a gigantic boulder perched on top of a spindly sandstone pillar one moment and walking through a perfect arc of red stone the next. Incredible. And literally 
just across the road is another incredible place, Canyonlands National Park. If Arches has the most unbelievable rock formations then Canyonlands must be home to some of the most unbelievable views. I might be going out 
on a limb here but I'd say it's possibly more stunning than even the Grand Canyon. This place has canyons within canyons that stretch out into a vastness which is mind-numbing. In fact it's hard to get any sense of scale at all until you see something
familiar like a tiny microscopic speck of a jeep 
driving through the desert below. And why would there be a jeep hurtling through this land of wonder? I'll tell you…
We inadvertently chose to visit Arches and Canyonlands during the busiest time of the year for this area. We managed to arrive during some sort of enormous off-roaders' jamboree called "Jeep Safari" which meant that the two parks, and the nearby town of Moab, were overrun with petrol heads driving some of the most unnecessarily outlandish vehicles ever devised. Jeeps, trucks and buggies, with ever more preposterously out-sized wheels, growl around the surrounding desert, kicking up huge dust storms and then chug into town wearing their dirt like a badge of honour. It did look like fun though! Moab was 
awash with these things and the people who drive them. People who, for the most part, wore vests, sported moustaches and seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time standing around discussing tyres. And the men were just as bad. 
Steamboat springs, in contrast to Moab, was very quiet and very cold. It is way up in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and, as is inferred by the name, is home to lots of natural hot water 
springs. These springs were the reason we were there and the reason why, at 6pm on a freezing cold evening at 7000 ft, I found myself getting undressed and donning a pair of swimming shorts. We chose the Strawberry Park springs where you can sit in 40°C pools of water in the middle of a snow covered forest. As the stars came out above us, the sensation of sitting in such hot water with such cold air around us was strangely pleasant. Less pleasant, however, is the sensation of leaving the warm pools and tiptoeing 
around, 
half-naked in near-arctic temperatures, desperately looking for your trousers in the dark. Just to illustrate how cold it was, I have included a picture of the icicle we found hanging from the tap INSIDE our RV! Brrrrr. BURGER OF THE WEEK
At Big House Burgers in Steamboat Springs I had something called Saul's Slammer. It was a buffalo-meat burger served open face on Texas toast with 
jalapeno pepper jack cheese, applewood smoked bacon and a fried egg – all covered with pork green chilli. It also came with sweet potato fries which was a nice touch. This was an epic burger and might well be a hard one to beat.
Comments
Post a Comment