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| Near Rangely |
An early start and a mostly boring drive through some very arid countryside just about sums up the day. Along the way we stopped and saw a number of ancient rock art sites through the Pintado Canyon, just before reaching Rangely. Rangely itself was a bit of an “oasis” in the desert as the surrounding area was very dry and sandy – we could envisage huge dust-storms when the wind blew. It was interesting to see oil drilling being carried our nearby while between Rangely and Lomax there were gas extraction going on.
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| Green River at Dinosaur National Monument |
We also stopped at Dinosaur National Monument but were disappointed to find that two of the main visitors’ centres were closed. As a result we missed out on seeing the dinosaur fossils. Nevertheless there was some spectacular scenery along the Green River. The Green River is a tributary of the Colorado and we had seen it in the distance from the Island in the Sky.
Vernal is very much like Moab – the main street just goes on and on. There doesn’t seem to be anything like a “shopping centre”.
Our motel here in Vernal is the height of luxury – we have a king room and the bathroom alone is almost as big as some rooms we’ve stayed in. The number of TV channels on offer is amazing – this motel has 141!! Most have 50+. Some of the news and current affairs programs are quite painful. Each event is dissected to death – for instance, analysis of the proposal to build a mosque at “Ground Zero” has been going on for days. Everybody who is anybody gets interviewed etc. I quite like the ads however. They are generally on a higher intellectual level than ours and quite often leave you wondering what the hell it’s about until the end.
For dinner tonight we had a Chinese buffet. It was exceptional value - $7.75 ea (plus tax, of course). I’ve never seen so much variety – there were 6 “islands” containing just about everything imaginable.
