FLAMING GORGE -Wyoming & Utah

This whole trip has been about getting back to Flaming Gorge National Recreational Park. I go there every time I head west. It’s my must go see place in this country…well, that only via backroads in northern New Mexico, southern Colorado and western Wyoming.

So, this post is going to be mostly photos that just can’t do it justice because my camera is about eight years old, it was raining all day except when I asked God for sun to be shining when I got to Red Canyon…and the sleet/rain combo stopped long enough for Montana and I to walk around, take pictures and get back in the car before it all started again. Yep. That’s true and you’ll see it in my photos.

Here we go! I started in Rawlins, Wyoming via I-80 to Green River to pick up 530 south to get to Utah where the juiciest parts are. These six photos are what it looked like getting to Green River in a capsule.

From Green River, going south still in Wyoming, you reach the beginning of the Flaming Gorge Park.

Once in Utah, the goal is to get to the Sheep Creek Geologic Turn out. This is what it looks like getting to that point.

The road just seems to disappear as you drive at 15 MPH through Sheep Creek.

Most of you don’t know that I fell in love with Geology and seriously considered changing my Major from Art to it but I had way too many credits in Art at that point to switch. So, to me, the BEST is the Sheep Creek Geologic Turn out once you get into Utah.

SHEEP CREEK it only took me FIVE years to get back to you, but here you are and here I am!

And…Sheep Creek…

But the BEST of the BEST is Red Canyon. Yeah, baby. It’s all that and some!

I decided to go back to Wyoming the same way I came in which was going to be the first time I’d travelled south on that road. It’s wonderful how things look so differently going in a different direction like it’s a totally different road.

Having vertigo creates the strange sensation of being drawn to the edge of the precipice while fighting the steering wheel during fog, rain, sleet, hairpin turns, road disappearing and severe drop off edges (like dropping several thousand feet) with only a small guard rail to keep you from going over.

I took a new back road to my next stop back in Wyoming. I was enjoying the lack of noise, traffic, 70 MPH drive, huge pasturelands full of Black Angus and savoring my day when I notice that the speed limit is reduced to 60 MPH. I check my speedometer and look back up to see a HUGE black blob in the middle of the road. I had no time at all to cipher what it was…only brake and pull to the right. It was during that process that I realized that three cowboys were HERDING Black Angus IN THE MIDDLE OF A HIGHWAY! They proceeded by us, smiled and tipped the bills of their baseball caps in “thanks.” I was so stunned that I totally forgot to grab my camera!

For some reason, I just LOVE to see long trains crossing open land. As I approached my randomly picked destination for the night on a back road to nowhere, a train is crossing a no-name abandoned whistle stop. It was just too cool not to capture.

And my randomly picked destination for the night happens to be the Fossil Capital of the World and the Home of J. C. Penny! Who knew! I’m going to drive around town tomorrow to get a little feel for it before heading for the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone!

HAPPY TAILS!