Sunday, October 19, 2014

Wide Open Spaces

Dixie Chicks and Wide Open Space: “She needs wide open spaces, a place to make a big mistake . . .” That’s what I need. I so relate to this song.

 Traveling from Ely to Green River on Wednesday proved that point. Wide open spaces, lots of ups and downs, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared. I decided on Green River instead of Moab and boy am I glad.

I drove through Moab to get to the southern end of Canyonlands National Park Thursday, and Moab is a tourist trap. Every other business is a tour company, an ATV rental place, a motel, a river rafting company, you name it, if it relates to tourism at Arches and Canyonlands, it is in Moab. And the traffic – it was almost like rush hour on the California freeways!

This was a long trip (around 250 miles round trip). The scenery was incredible (except for Moab) and awesome. I met up with some cows on the road to Canyonlands (it is mostly open range). A group were in the middle of the road, so I stopped. They looked at my truck and something about the front of my truck must have spooked them, because the group took off running up the hill. Very funny!

Did a little hiking at Pothole Point and drove down a dirt and gravel road towards Elephant Hill. It was all gorgeous. At Pothole Point, I saw this formation that looked like an eagle flying. It was a quiet, easy walk to see all the potholes. Only a couple had water, the rest were dry. Apparently wierd little critters grow in the water and then bury themselves as the pothole dries. They re-emerge when it gets wet.


I saw a lot of campers going toward Canyonlands (there are several campgrounds), but the road was so awful, I wouldn’t take my trailer out to those areas.

Another formation in the Canyonlands area. Canyonlands is kind of separated into three areas: Islands In The Sky (northern part), The Maze (middle), and The Needles (southern part). These were all taken in the Needles part.


At the end of the road in the Canyonlands area, I saw this bird waiting for dropped food from people in cars. He was very bold and let me get very close to him.

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