We left our campground at Flaming Gorge National Recreation
Area in the morning and decided to drive around to see what it had to offer.
Here are some of the sights as we drove around:
Eventually we turned a corner and saw this view:
We drove on and found a visitor center perched on the corner
of this lake (pictures taken from inside):
Saw some animals:
Saw the historic “Swett” Utah homestead ranch – this ranch
was lived on until 1978 and today is preserved so you can see what life was
like for people and families coming to Utah at the turn of the 19th century.
Then we drove over the dam that created the lake you saw
previously. Tours were offered, but we figured we’d seen enough dam tours on
this trip.
As we left Flaming Gorge headed Southeast, there was more
amazing scenery:
We knew we were getting close to our next destination –
Dinosaur National Monument – when the roadside gas stations and stores started looking like this:
We arrived at our campground, inside the monument area and right by the Green River, in
the early evening.
We weren’t going to explore the monument until the next day, but
we did take a short hike and swim along the Green River at sunset, since the
trail started right at our campsite:
That’s it for today. Tomorrow we’ll tell you all about
Dinosaur National Monument.
Random Fact of the
Day: This area supposedly boasts one of the darkest skies in the continental U.S.A. Every night, if the sky is clear, park rangers put on an astronomy program at the campground next to ours but unfortunately skies were somewhat overcast during our stay. Sharon still tried for another star picture:
