After over two weeks of enjoying red rocks it was time to move north. It took us a while to decide which way to go: take an interstate through SLC to Idaho and from there head to Wyoming or take a steep and difficult "191" and go through Dinosaur Diamond, visiting on our way two dino-museums and one national monument.
Dinosaur Diamond is a name of a scenic byway crossing eastern Utah and western Colorado. It runs from Moab north on "191" through Green River and Price to Vernal. From there it goes back south touching Colorado on "40" and "139" and finally along Colorado river on "128". The whole thing is 512 miles long, we were planning to do more or less half of it - from Moab to Vernal.
We were just a little bit worried, although dinosaurs were tempting, high mountains, due to lack of trust in our car, were discouraging. But at last we’ve decided to take a risk. After all we don’t see dinosaurs every day.
We go tup quite early, before it got really hot (last few days were difficult even for us, and we are, lets say, thermophilic), and went directly to Price. We skipped Cleveland - Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. It’s a little bit outside of the highway, there is a dirt road leading there and we decided it was too far for us. Too bad, as we read later that it’s a fascinating place where you can watch dinosaur skeletons put toghether and bones left in the ground. Some of the excavations are in the buildings, and there are over 20 different exhibitions. Probably if we read the brochures more closely we would decide to stop there after all.
In Price we stopped only in Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum. For 6 USD per adult and 3 USD per Maciek (Kalina goes in for free) we visited not very interesting museum with some skeletons and few Indian exhibits. Then we went to visit a local information center when on top of maps and brochures we got 15 USD worth of vouchers to JBs restaurant where we stopped for lunch. Thus we waited through the worst heat and around 5 we moved on. Of course according to our plan we should’ve been some 100 miles further by then but we are already used to the fact that our plans need corrections quickly.
So we left Price and we headed on. We were driving and driving and driving, the road looked a bit like in California - winding among green hills, we even started unconsciously waiting for an ocean to show up at next turn. We were driving for a few hours. It did seem suspicious at some point that we kept driving against the sun, but we managed to racionalize that. And then Pawel asked "so on this junction, of 6 and 89, which way do I turn?". What? Wait a minute…it was supposed to be "191"!!!
We stopped on the side of the road and we looked at our map. Somewhere on the way, busy with enjoying the landscape, passing by road work (Pawel) and translating the blog into English (Ola) we managed to miss the fork of "6" and "191". To make it even worse, our GPS said that to Vernal, where from Price it was some 110 miles, now we have 150 by maybe a bit better highway 40, but still we have to cross the mountains...
We decided to call it a quirk of fate - maybe this steep "191" was just not meant to be. Dinosaurs can wait. Too bad we didn’t get to see the museum in Vernal - the best one in the Diamond and we wish we could’ve seen Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal - must see for dino-lovers. It’s quite a big park with great views, towering canyon walls, rock paintings and lots and lots of prehistoric fossils. Better not to read those brochures as it makes us angry we missed it…
Meanwhile we headed to Wyoming east on "189", on a pretty nice road with pretty nice views, including our favourite "long time no see" - Snake River. To the "real wild west" state we got well after dark.
Unfortunately Wild Wild West Wyoming is not wild when it comes to free campsites. At the Welcome Center just passed the state line there is a sign forbidding camping. We opted for civilization then and we spent a night at Flying J. Travel Center. We parked among huge trucks with engines on and we went to sleep. We considered a shower but when we heard the price (12 USD) our Utah dirt became nice and cozy. We survived this tiring civilization experience with a thought that next day we’re going back to the nature. We were on our way to Grand Teton National Park.
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