We wanted to see two visitor's centers that we had passed by on other drives. The first was the Visitor's Center at the big dam--we had been told it was a good tour and to be sure to bring quarters to feed the giant fish at the end. When we arrived at the Center, we parked next to a very cool-looking Indian brand motorcycle, which was in a parking space signed "Reserved Senior Citizen". We talked for a bit to the "senior citizen" couple riding it. It was a brand-new motorcycle although it looks kind of vintage--they had ridden it all the way from Rhode Island!
Sign on fence on right says: "Reserved Senior Citizen"
Flaming Gorge Dam Visitor Center - Note stormy skies over mountain on right.
Inside the center we signed up for the next tour and went in to watch a movie while we waited, which wasn't long. We were the only ones on this tour, and we first had to empty our pockets and go through a metal detector while an armed ranger watched us. Our tour leader then led us outside the building and started her spiel. Then a thunderclap sounded, along with a lightning flash. "Oops," she said. "I saw lightning. That means we have to stop the tour. We'll try again in a half hour." So back inside we went. We decided to watch a longer movie, about constructing the dam, while waiting for the next tour. (We really wanted to feed the fish!) The movie turned out to be an old 1950s propaganda film for dam building but we refrained from booing.
Now a bunch of people had come into the center with a lot of noisy little kids and they all were going on the next tour. So we lined up again, emptied our pockets again (the ranger cut us no slack even though we'd been in the building the whole time since the last tour attempt). This time we got to hear the first part of the spiel again, and walked up a bunch of steps and heard the second part of the spiel (different tour guide). Then suddenly, another lightning bolt and crack of thunder. "Oops," she said, "I saw lightning. We have to stop the tour. We'll try again in a half hour." We gave up and went back to the van and headed to the next stop.
The second visitor center we wanted to see is called the Red Canyon Overlook Visitor's Center. Our fishing guide Eric had told us we really needed to see this place, and he's right. First off, driving in we spotted a herd of bighorn sheep, the first we'd seen here, so that was exciting in itself. The Center is right on the edge of the Red Canyon area of the Flaming Gorge. This part of the canyon has a feel very much like the Grand Canyon. It's a huge canyon--1700 feet deep and 4000 ft across. The wall of the Center next to the canyon edge is all glass with amazing views of the rocky canyon walls and Green River below. Jack took photos of the views, the stuffed animals, and me with the impressive Mountain Man (Carol has a thing for mountain men!)
To appreciate the following photos, note this canyon is 1700 feet deep.
The view of the Red Canyon from inside the visitor center.
A few wild animals that we did not encounter.
Another wild animal we did not encounter.
Then we went outside and walked the trail along the canyon edge. Carol goofed around, trying to get as close as possible to the edge for a scary photo op. We both got vertigo!
Carol illegally trying to jump fence.
Then she plays on the edge of the canyon.
Driving out we saw even more bighorn sheep, this time spotting two rams having a stare-down contest. Since it was Friday night, we decided to have supper at the Red Canyon Lodge, which we'd passed driving into the Visitor Center. Good choice--we had smoked trout for an appetizer, and the special, buffalo chili, both yummy. While eating we watched the mule deer and the hummingbirds in the front yard of the lodge. Also, this turned out to be the site of the awards banquet for the "One Fly" contest that was going on Thursday when we floated the river. This is an annual fundraiser for Trout Unlimited, and they have a big dinner and present awards, like "Biggest Loser" to the fisherman who loses his fly first. Looked like fun. Some fishermen types were practicing their flycasting on the front lawn while we ate, trying to get their lure through a hoop. This is DEFINITELY a big flyfishing area.
Bighorn sheep lying down on the job.
Dinner date at the Red Canyon Lodge.
Flowers everywhere, in full bloom.
Dinosaurs, here we come.
It was getting late when we got to Dinosaur National Monument, but we had time to drop by the main Visitor Center to get an overview. Nice center, like most national parks. (Free entrance, because this is the week of the 100th anniversary of the National Park System. Although we would have gotten free entrance anyway with our Golden Age cards...) We got a map of the Park and bought a couple of books, and took some dinosaur bone pics. This place is the site of a MAJOR Jurassic era fossil find back around 1909 to 1924--10 dinosaur species were discovered, with 20 complete skeletons, including rare juvenile skulls and skeletons. This is the REAL Jurassic Park, folks. It's a quarry for dinosaur bones--a logjam of bones. It's surmised that these animals died during drought periods and their bones were washed down and covered up when the rivers flooded again. Most of those earlier finds of the complete skeletons ended up in major museums around the country, including the Smithsonian. The cool thing is that the place was declared a national monument in 1915, preserving a portion of the bone quarry just as it is, under protection of a big warehouse-like building--basically it's a rock wall of dinosaur bones that you can see and study and even touch some of them. The Park has been added to over the years, and now it's a GIANT park, hundreds of thousands of acres, with many more features than the bone quarry--lots of hiking trails, river rafting, geological oddities, native American petroglyphs, etc.
We left the Visitor's Center and headed to the Green River Campground in the Park, to locate a campsite. Since we get the half price of $9 per night, we decided to stay 3 nights. Obviously lots to see here. The campground is right on the banks of the Green with a good view of Split Mountain. It was almost full, since this is the next to last weekend of their season, but we found a shady campsite and had Happy Hour at our picnic table, after walking along the riverbank for awhile.
Next morning we got up early and drove the 5 miles back to the Visitor Center and the nearby Quarry building, to see the "wall of bones." Really neat. Lots to see and read about. We talked to the knowledgeable ranger on duty to find out why the paleontologists were willing to have all these supposedly valuable dinosaur bones just left here in the rock, for people to look at. She said they got so many skeletons and bones from this quarry, and so many were sold to museums all over the country (Andrew Carnegie was the main funder of the original digs here) that there was a glut on the market. And then the Great Depression hit, and then WWII, and no one was interested in digging, selling or buying dinosaur bones for a long while. Apparently there was another somewhat similar fossil site that was declared a National Monument and they dug out all the bones from it, and then it lost its National Monument status. They didn't want that to happen here, as there was also talk of damming the rivers that run through this park, which would cover a lot of the important fossil and geological sites. So someone had the bright idea of leaving a lot of the bones in the rock where people could see them and learn about them, so that's what happened. There is still lots of important paleontological research going on within the Park, just at different sites.
The Quarry building preserves the dig where so many bones were found and sent to museums all over the US.
One side of the "wall of bones" dig has been preserved.
Facing a part of the dig wall. Bones are scattered everywhere in the rock surface.
Carol and I are sitting on the femur of a dinosaur (casting).
Carol standing next to the femur of a dinosaur (real).
One of several rock faces filled with petroglyphs.
The Split Mountain canyon of the Green River was really interesting--the river cut down through a rock mountain when it looked like it would have been much easier for it to go around it. The geological explanation is too complicated to explain here--maybe the river just wanted a bigger challenge!
Split Mountain. At the base is the Green River, behind where Carol is standing.
The end of the auto tour was the ranch of Josie Bassett Morris, a rancher who was legendary around here. Now this was one interesting woman! After divorcing four husbands and possibly poisoning the fifth one, Josie decided to homestead a ranch by herself way out in the boondocks (this was around 1914, when she was 40 years old). She built a series of cabins, the last one in 1935, which you can still see and go inside of. She raised and butchered cattle and pigs, chickens and geese. She grew a big garden and canned her own food. She had just a fireplace for heat and cooking, and oil lamps for light. Her water came from a spring. She used two big nearby box canyons to corral her livestock. She could ride and shoot as good as any man. She was accused twice (but never convicted) of cattle rustling, and was "an associate" of the outlaw Butch Cassidy who hung around in these parts a good bit. (Although Josie normally wore pants and kept her hair cut short while on her ranch, when she had these occasional run-ins with the law and the courts, she would don her best dress, pin up her hair, and simper in front of the judge: "Now, Judge, how in the world could a little old lady like me possibly kill, dress out, and hide 10 beeves all by myself?" It always seemed to work. Maybe the judge was just afraid of her!) In addition to her independent nature, she was apparently very charming and also very generous, always helping people out with food and money when she had it, especially during the Depression, when times were tough for lots of folks. She died at the age of 90, after falling while feeding her horse in icy conditions and breaking her hip. Her ranch site was lovely, peaceful and quiet, with lots of cottonwood trees around for shade and a huge grapevine in the yard. (They were tart but tasty--like the wild fox grapes at home.)
Carol standing near the entrance to Josie's log cabin, which had a dirt floor.
Now we came back to our campsite, had some leftover buffalo chili for supper, and are doing the blog...
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