Happy Halloween!

Tonight we are set up in Fruita at the base of Book Cliffs, looking over the lights of town. It’s spectacular. On Lisa and BJ’s recommendation, we came down to this little Colorado town and it was immediately apparent why they liked it so much. First of all it’s beautiful. The town is in an open flat valley with lots of sunlight, surrounded by distant red hills. The trees are still lit up with Fall colors filling the valley floor with oranges and yellows. It’s all reflected off the Colorado flowing through town. Secondly the mountain biking culture pervades the entire area. It reeks of healthy living and athletic people. There are bike shops on each corner and the streets are filled with bikes and avid riders. It’s downright inspiring. Third, it’s 70 degrees…enough said….

Our trip down from Flaming Gorge was also scenic. Last night we drove about 5 miles off road to the edge of the reservoir. We woke up to a fantastic sunrise which Tim captured. In fact tonight we sharing our sunrise and our sunset, it was a good day of photogenic solar power.

The highlight of our day came from an impulsive detour on our way South. In Vernal UT, we stopped for a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop and started flipping through the town paper while we waited. They had a picture from nearby Dinosaur National Monument. The picture was taken of petroglyphs at McKee Springs, just inside a remote entrance of the Park which is only accessible from a 15 mile dirt road….just our kind of side trip. We hopped back in Frank, and started down the washboard road.

When we reached the Park, we were completely alone, no cars, no people, no indication that anyone had been there for weeks. And high on the cliff walls were dozens of detailed, remarkable drawings. It was incredible. We hiked up to the pictures and just took it all in in silence. In many trips to the Southwest, I’ve never seen petroglyphs like these, the detail and preservation are incredible. It’s an overlooked corner of desert that shouldn’t be missed.