Today we tried driving the Blue Highway out of Rawlins, Wyoming, and for a time it seemed to work out. We've been listening to "Manhunt," by James L. Swanson on the CD player. The book is about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the subsequent 12-day hunt for John Wilkes Booth. The book is nothing short of illuminative and fascinating, but trying to listen while 18-wheelers thunder by in the fast lane every few seconds is just too irritating. By the time we reached the first rest area, I had made up my mind to try and find a less traveled way to reach Utah and, ultimately, Nevada.
At the rest stop we took a fifteen minute walk around the grounds and then, when we had returned to the rig, I dragged out the atlas and searched for an alternate route into what geologists call "the Great Basin." As fate would have it, there WAS a route that we could take that branched off at Rock Springs, the next large town that we would be encountering after we left the rest area. The tiny red line on the map showed "Route 191" dropping straight south from Rock Springs and eventually finishing up in the Utah town of Vernal, just over a hundred miles away. Eureka!
So it was that after gassing up the rig and doing a bit of grocery shopping, we were soon rolling south out of Rock Springs into unknown territory. Neither of us had traveled this way before and just about anything was possible. It certainly proved to be so.
What a change from the Interstate it was! Although there was the occasional truck hauling ore from a mine (near Vernal we found out later), and the infrequent RVer, we saw very, very few vehicles for the next hour. When it was approaching lunch time and my stomach started telling me to find a pull-off, we found a scenic overlook that would accommodate our length and pulled in next to a large "point of interest" sign.
The sign at the scenic overloook was topped with the title, "Art Gallery of Time," and furnished the following information: "Major John Wesley Powell named the Flaming Gorge and tributaries, such as the Little Fire Hole Canyon, for the brilliant red sandstones exposed in the canyon walls. Embarking from what is now Green River, Wyoming in specially designed river dory boats, Powell completed two voyages down the Green and Colorado Rivers through the Grand Canyon. The first, in 1869, was largely exploratory. The second, in 1871, collected scientific data and produced the first maps of the upper Colorado drainage system. Powell's work formed the basis for much of what geologists now know about the region."
"The Green River through Flaming Gorge is a classic example of a superposed stream -- it flows across the eastern end of the Uinta Mountains, rather than draining away from the mountains. Geologists believe that when the last major regional erosion cycle began several million years ago, an extensive landscape nearly level with the present crest of the Unitas dominated southern Wyoming. As erosion removed softer rock, the river level was gradually lowered, cutting a precipitous canyon into the resistant core of the Unitas."
The result is the spectacular Red Canyon of the Green River, which chronicles earth history. Rocks in the very near area are young, only about 49 million years old. Traveling down tributary canyons, such as the little Firehole, and continuing downstream toward Flaming Gorge Dam, older rock formations contain a wide variety of fossils, ranging from dinosaurs to primitive sea life. Near Flaming Gorge Dam, the dark red sandstones and shales of the pre-Cambrian Unita Core form the near vertical canyon walls. These rocks are nearly 1.1 billion years old.
Got that? Well, I agree it would take reading and rereading the foregoing a couple of times to make sense of it, but I decided to put it all in here in case I wanted to refer to it later. You can, too! All I can say is the lunch-time scenery was just magnificent and probably served as one of our more memorable lunch-time vistas ever.
While I was waiting for Concetta to make our sandwiches, I grabbed the camera and headed across the road and up into the juniper forest to try and afford myself a better vantage point for taking photos of the canyon. Also, since the geology seemed to be sedimentary in nature, I hoped to spot some million-year-old fossil I could photograph and appreciate. What I found was Andrew. Andrew was wandering the juniper forest perhaps fifty yards away, his eyes on the ground, paying no attention to me as I did the same thing. I didn't know his name at this point, but I soon would.
A few minutes later, our wandering brought us into closer proximity. I looked up and waved, called hello. A few seconds later he ambled over to where I was searching for fossils. "Finding anything?" I asked, when I looked up to see him holding something small in a couple of pinched fingers.
He shrugged and pointed over to where another man was searching the sedimentary deposits about a hundred feet from us. "My buddy did," he said.
I hadn't seen the second man before. "You guys looking for fossils?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Just these," he said. He held out a struggling black beetle about the size of an electrician's wire nut. "It's a Pinacate beetle," he said, "also known as a stink beetle." He raised the beetle's rear end up to his nose and sniffed. "Usually when they are alarmed," he continued, "they raise their rear ends in your direction and spray you with a stinky concoction."
I wondered if he had been out in the desert a little too long since he seemed to be just asking for the beetle to spray him. Hoping to keep up my side of the conversation I said, "So you're one of those entomologists," I asked.
"Yes," he said. "I'm out here from the Arizona State University. We're trying to find a few of these that we can take back and study their genetics."
"Sounds interesting," I said. "What's your name?"
"Andrew," he said, and we shook hands.
"Well, Andrew," I said, "Whether you find any stink bugs or not, you've certainly got a fine day for looking."
Andrew agreed, and held up his beetle. "Got to go find a container for him," he said.
I asked if he'd let me take his photo before he left, and, for good measure, I took one of the beetle. After that we went our separate ways. Once again I had discovered a total stranger that was more than happy to include me and my camera in his life. After 77 days on the road, and meeting countless people in the process, I can say that Americans are are the most friendly and accommodating creatures on the planet. My advice is to never pass up an opportunity to meet them.
After lunch we continued our run down wonderfully scenic Route 191. The biggest problem we discovered was that there were SO MANY beautiful vistas, often on both sides of the road, that even with repeated stops we had to pass dozens just because the road was too narrow and shoulders too unstable to pull over.
The biggest reason to travel Route 191 is for the geology. Some of the most incredible geology we've seen on the entire trip we saw today. Here's a little bit about the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area from Wikipedia: "The gorge is a 207,363-acre parcel that is part in Utah and part in Wyoming. Located within the area is a reservoir having the capacity of 3,788,900 acre feet (43 thousand square feet to a depth of one foot). The Green River is the source for the reservoir."
"The whole area is on the Colorado Plateau, which has risen almost straight up to elevations as great as 10,000 feet. The Flaming Gorge area lies on the very northern edge of the Colorado Plateau. The Plateau appears to end in the Vernal area. The Plateau is made up of many smaller plateaus each a few hundred feet higher or lower than others. Faults and folds result in a rich geological history of the area."
Traveling north from Vernal, on US 191, you will see markers naming the various earth and rock formations as seen from the road. They start with the Cretaceous Period. [The Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic are within the Mesozoic Era of the Phanerozioc eon] consisting of the Mancos Formation, the Frontier, the Mowry and Dakota formations. The Mancos is the youngest and composed of clay that settled to the bottom of the sea which covered the area. Many fossils are found in these strata."
"Next is the Frontier in which for millions of years tropical plants were deposited by a river delta and then buried. The pressure and decomposition formed coal beds. Calcite building around fossils formed rocks or 'cannonballs.'"
"Next, the Mowry formation is about 100 million years old and is composed of shale (clay and volcanic ash) left by an ancient sea. In the strata is found fossilized fish scales and bones. The last formation seen here in the Cretaceous Period is the Dakota. This formation results from streams flowing into the ocean transporting rocks and soils to this area. Trees and plants growing along these streams are now petrified and contained within the deposit. The formation of the Dakota took place about 110 million years ago."
"A few miles further north on US 191 the Jurassic period formations are found. The Morrison, Curtis, Entrada, Carmel and Navajo formations make up this period. Low-lying plains, streams and lakes laid the Morrison about 145 million years ago. The area was home to dinosaurs, crocodiles, and turtles who left fossil records and became extinct. This formation has 'rainbow' colored clays – red, maroon, purple, white, and green which are different types of clay, shale, and sandstone. The Curtis Formation is sandstone, shale, and limestone that was deposited by the sea. Investigation will show mud cracks and ripple marks with fossil remains of many now extinct fish and reptiles."
"After the Curtis formation, the seas dissipated and the land became desolate. Neither plants nor animals lived here. Winds laid down layers of sand and dust. This was about 150 million years ago and is the Entrada Formation. During the next period, the Carmel, the sea returned. The ground was soft and beaches were formed. Dinosaurs walked along the beaches leaving footprints that filled with a plaster-like cement. A sign along US 191 points out where these footprints are found along The Red Fleet State Park. Additionally, this formation contains evaporates of gypsum that are being presently mined."
There's lots more of this techno-talk, but you get the idea. Until the Colorado Plateau was pushed up, the whole darn place was covered by water or wet, marshy land. If you care about geology, this is a great place to come and appreciate the incredible machinations of our planet.
There was one exceptional place we stopped today that I just had to photograph. To do it I had to climb to the top of a nearby hill. Though my education in the field of geology encompasses only two classes I took decades ago at Western Nevada College, I thought the formation looked exactly like what's known as a "hinged fault block" type of fracture.
The Sierra Nevada is, at least in part, a hinged fault block formation. That means that plate tectonics forced the Pacific Plate to drive irresistibly into the North American Plate, and the pressure has caused the land in Nevada to buckle and fracture along vertical fault lines. As eastward-moving pressure is placed on north America, the hinge on the California side of the fault block begins to swing upward, and the ground rises on the Nevada side. It's sort of like a gigantic door laying on its side that is hinged in California and opens in Nevada. To me the photo just above looks exactly like that type of process in miniature.
There were lots more stops to capture lots more scenic shots today, but I think I'll wind this up by saying, if you ever get a chance to travel Route 191 that runs from Rock Creek, Wyoming to Vernal, Utah, you should give it a try. In addition to there being a KOA at both ends, there are many primitive camps along the way, some in the forested areas, to tempt you. I even had the clerk who checked me in at the Vernal KOA today tell me that she takes HER RV up on the mountain and leaves it all summer.
So when YOU take your RV out to explore America, we wish you Happy Travels!
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