As we got to Colorado National Monument, we realized that Paul had left his Golden Passport plus book, back at the visitors center at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Luckily it was a no fee park. And, we were able to get the phone number to call and check about it. They did have it and they said they would mail it to us. So that was great. Paul has collected lots of stamps etc from all the National Parks etc that we have visited.
There were interesting rock formations and beautiful views.
Dinosaur National Monument was our next stop. The Colorado side was nicer than the Utah side. On the Utah side the quarry is closed right now while they are building a new visitors center and building for the quarry. So, you can't really see many dinosaur bones.
On some of our little hikes/walks, we saw lots of pinon pines. We even found "one nut" each in a couple of pine cones. That was really fun because I remember my father going out and collecting pine nuts. Most of the pine nuts have been eaten by the animals, bugs, etc. But, it was pretty neat to see so many of the trees.
In our traveling, we had lots of little picnics.
We live in a beautiful world. Lots of varied scenery - forests, canyons, rivers, peaks, etc.
At the Utah side of the monument, we saw petroglyphs (sp?), mountain sheep, we drove down a 13 mile steep road to where a lady had lived without running water, electricity, etc for 50 years - she was 90+ when she died. The park is keeping her house there.
At the bottom of the canyon where the Green River is running. People would raft and get out here - the raft trips were 5 to 7 days to this point.
As we got to the end of our trip, we went to Vernal Utah. We stayed in a very nice motel and Sarah joined us there. Saturday morning we got up and went to the Vernal Temple.
Going to the Temple was a lovely way to end our trip. We had missed being at the Temple since our Temple, The Jordan River Temple, had been closed for two weeks.
