Paws and Friends

Provo/Springville East Bay KOA (newly KOA) Watching the weather encouraged us to put a burr (pun intended!) under our saddle--time to move on down the road to Giddyup Town! We broke it up in four legs:  first to Provo/Springville East Bay KOA, second to Moab, third to just south of Cortez, CO--Sleeping Ute Mountain RV Park, and finally from there to Gallup, covering 543 miles in four days. We were "just ahead" of the weather--wind picked up the afternoon of our arrival date in Gallup with snow showers, thunder and more wind the second day here! Sleeping Ute Mountain RV Park, Towaoc, CO We found the RV parks quite busy. Many of the sites occupied by extended stays, perhaps an indicator of the economy. Sleeping Ute was an exception, with many sites available. We had our choice of sites, and we tried to choose one based on all considerations--but we still missed it! Most sites were not level left to right, and the park is on a slight slope down hill across the sites....

Golden Spike RV Park, in Brigham City, is a nice park. Sites are close together, as you can see in the picture at the left, but ample for the purpose. Our site, number 1, is right at the exit, so we can head straight out. The tree blocked our satellite signal, but their cable worked well! We will definitely return, especially if we can get our favorite site, number 1! We had planned this trip so we could see the Golden Spike National Historic Site. In spite of the government shutdown, we decided that we would drive out to the site just to see what we could see. We are glad we did and we had plenty of company! Weather was cool (in the 40's when we started, finally hitting 50 degrees around noon!) but sunny. The auto tours that we had planned on were closed, as was the trail out to The Big Fill, but we were able to see exhibits around the outside of the visitor's center, and evidence of the original grade of the railroad tracks as we drove around. But, as with most places whe...

One of the attractions at Hagerman is the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. The Visitor's Center is in Hagerman, and is normally closed Tuesday and Wednesday so we went Monday, not even thinking about the possible government shutdown. We are glad we did! The 600 foot high bluffs rising above the Snake River, as shown in this picture, comprise the Hagerman Fossil Beds, revealing the environment at the end of the Pilioene Epoch (a very long time ago!). Mastodons, sabre-tooth cats, beavers, muskrats, otters, antelope, deer, ground sloths, hyena-like dogs, fish, frogs, snakes, waterfowl, and yes, CAMELS lived here! The sediment layers from river level to the tops of the bluffs span some 550,000 years:  from 3.7 million years old at river level to 3.15 million years old atop the bluff. Yep! A very, very, very long time ago! We were surprised to learn about the two kinds of camels: the camelops and the camelids. Beale was on to something in the 1850's, introducing camels i...

We love scenic by-ways, and the Thousand Springs route on old US 30 is one we have taken many times, including those times when it was the ONLY way to go! (Ummmm, that does "date" the writer, doesn't it?!)  Exit 137 from the west on I-84 takes you through Bliss, Idaho, then south on US 30, along the Snake River. We seem to be following some historic trails....Lewis & Clark and the Oregon Trail, anyone...? As we were driving this route we remarked on how L & C were able to chart their path so accurately and return east pretty much over the same route. Then there is the Oregon Trail--where they can identify the "exact" pieces, then approximate the general route. Pretty amazing! Then there is the Snake River. We have counted the number of times the highway crosses it across Idaho--I cannot remember that number now, but it certainly is a "mighty" river of the west, one on which all travelers over time have relied. The Thousand Springs  are fo...