Hi, folks.

I know it’s been a month (!) since I posted last.  I can only apologize, as I know you are all DYING to know what’s going on in my life.  Heh.

Rich took me for an adventure for my birthday.  He only told me we were going.  He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, or what we were doing.

We left at about 8:30am on June 1, and drove up into the Book Cliffs.  We drove up  a steep, dusty and beautiful canyon near Cisco.  There were lots of wildflowers blooming.

Once on top, we drove across the Winter Ridge road, and then down the other side through Willow Creek canyon, which was amazingly lush and beautiful.  There were several old, dead vehicles which were obviously just left where they died.  One farmer was even feeling humane, and shot his old truck to put it out of its misery.

After Willow Creek, we drove through a place called Ouray, UT.  I am familiar with Ouray, CO (pronounced YOU-ray), but I am not sure I have ever been to Ouray, UT.  As we drove into town, there was water right at road-level.  This is the flood plain of the Green River, and it’s definitely flooding.  The Colorado River in Moab is also VERY high right now.  Here’s what the road looked like on the way into Ouray:

After driving for about another half an hour, we arrived in Vernal, UT.  I couldn’t have imagined that was where we were going, but that’s where we ended up.  It was fun getting there, and it was fun checking out a different Utah town.  Vernal has about 9000 people, so it’s about twice the size of Moab (ooooh – a metropolis!).   The first thing we did was stop to eat.  We spotted a very promising-looking taco joint (complete with a taco truck parked out front, which is where the cooking happened).  We each had a carne asada burrito, and they were AMAZING.  I am so glad we found Tacos el Gordo!

After the burritos (which I probably should have eaten 2 of, since they were sooooo good), we checked into a motel – the elegant Weston Lamplighter.  We were planning to camp, but this motel was pretty cheap, so we decided to stay in style.  We checked in, then walked around Vernal’s downtown area.  The City of Vernal has put up little interpretive plaques on the street in various places.  They tell about the history of the town, and the history of the buildings.  It’s interesting to see, and it seems like something that might be nice in Moab.

In the morning, we got up fairly early with plans to visit the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge on the way home.  Upon arrival, we couldn’t even drive into the refuge.  The roads were all chained or barricaded.  It was very disappointing, but on the way back out of the parking lot, I saw a bright rust-colored duck swimming next to the reeds, and got some photos of him.  He is a Cinnamon Teal, and a new addition to my life list.

After that small bit of disappointment, we drove off down a back road heading for a place called Fantasy Canyon.  I had no idea what it was or what to expect, but Rich had done his homework, and found us another really cool and interesting place!  The light wasn’t great at the time of day we visited (around noon), but the canyon was really amazing.  It was really intricate, and it made me happy that it’s in rural, out of the way Utah, so no one has destroyed it.

From the parking lot, it just kind of looks like a bunch of piles of rocks.  First the parking lot, then the piles of rocks:

Once you get into the actual ‘canyon’ area, it’s very different.  The whole little park is very small, and not at all what I expect when I hear the word ‘canyon’.  There were little markers for some of the formations which have names and locations on them.  Some of the named formations were a lot more obvious than others.  Here’s one of the obvious ones:

Here’s a picture of the most stuff I could put into one photo, one of Rich taking pictures of a formation called ‘the alien head’, and one with Rich in it for scale:

We drove back to Moab roughly the way we came, but we gave Willow Creek canyon a miss.  On the way, we stopped in scenic Thompson, UT to get gas, and decided to drive up to the ghost town of Sego.  We were shocked to see that the Sego Hotel building is completely down.  We had taken some of Rich’s family to Sego in May of 2006, and it was still standing.  It’s interesting to see what time/people can do to these things.  Here is the Sego Hotel in May 2006, and yesterday (June 2011).  This is roughly the same angle – the big tree to the right in the first photo is just out of the second photo to the right.

The Sego General Store / School House is still in the same condition it has been as long as I can remember, and there was a friendly lizard warming himself in the sun.