On the road today to Steamboat Springs, Colorado where we will spend a day fishing. It is surprising to see that Northern Utah has some huge mining companies such as Rio Tinto digging into the hillsides, mining copper, aluminum and other minerals. The striated red rock reminds us of Dubois, the eastern Wind River Range in Wyoming and we discover we are actually on the south end of that range. North of Park City, an entire new resort with many ski runs is under construction.
After 800+ miles and too many hay fields, we are getting a bit punchy. Ray – “We should stop at one of these tractor stores and see what new tractors have. They must have all kinds of new lifts, forks…” Me – “Yeah, tell them you are Farmer Ray looking to upgrade your fleet of tractors to the latest technology.”
How can we miss seeing the Dinosaur National Monument, only a 9 mile detour from the main road? The 5 min. shuttle takes us to the fossil quarry, now under cover in a two story building where one side is rock with bones still embedded. Paleontologists have unearthed over 400 dinosaurs, mostly stegosaurus and camarasaurus. It is amazing to see.
The geology of the surrounding area is quite interesting, rock from many time periods and cliffs with sharp jagged rocks that resemble the back of a stegosaurus. Below winds the Green River.
The highway is as straight as an arrow and the scene reminds me of being in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania -mesas, low lying canyon walls and distant mountain ranges. All that is missing is wildlife of which we see little.
It is early evening and we arrive in Steamboat Springs, a charming ski town with a Main Street that is so similar to many other Colorado resort towns that I feel like I have been here before. We enjoy a wonderful dinner of lasagna and cioppini at Mazzola’s Italian Restaurant. We are determined on this trip to continue our very healthy, mostly homemade salad and veggie diet, which we have maintained this summer and I especially, relish every bite of this dinner. Tomorrow back to lettuce and bell peppers!
Tonight we are at the Steamboat Mountain Lodge. Thinking that it is not vacation season, we have been winging it without reservations most nights, totally out of my comfort zone – the past 2 nights we got the last rooms!