Turning East

(Picture: Taken at Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah)

At 2:08 Mountain Daylight Time, I made a left hand turn onto Rte. 40 in Vernal, Utah. For the first time, we were heading East. We stopped for the night only 20 miles or so further at Dinosaur National Monument near Jensen, Utah. Tomorrow, we’ll search for more fossils before driving East for five hours to Rocky Mountain National Park near Denver.

Last night we stopped at the KOA in Rock Springs, Wyoming around midnight after driving for five hours from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On the East Coast, Newark is generally considered the armpit of America, but the KOA in Rock Springs, Wyoming wins the award for the Mountain Time Zone. The KOA is nestled behind three large natural gas containers – the industrial kind that serve entire states. Without these behemoths, there would be no sound barrier between the campsite and the interstate 100 yards away. Now, remove all vegetation and replace it with gravel, a dilapidated playground, and constant howling winds. That was last night’s travel stop.

To be fair, the KOA was absolutely a stop-over type of place, and, as KOA’s do, it fulfilled all of our service needs. We effectively and efficiently “dumped” at midnight, filled our water tank, charged our batteries, leveled the RV without the dreaded “air dump”, and had very clean showers. Also, the KOA had an arcade with a driving video game and Wyoming’s requisite BuckMaster 2000 with plastic deer-shooting shotguns. I’m pretty sure the kids thought this was the best campsite of the trip.

Speaking of the kids, I’ve been mulling over how much they will remember/appreciate about the trip. Perhaps the constant family time is starting to wear on the adults, but the Total Complaint Volume (TCV, a psychological acronym often employed by the adult defense in abuse cases) seems to have grown. In the kids defense, even adults need to adjust to being uprooted every day or so. Even after adjusting, an itinerant existence can only be temporary. So, despite constant fabulous experiences, I think they are getting a little weary of travel. Also, I try to remember my vacation and travel experience when I was 3, 5 or 8 years old. I can only remember flashes, rather than whole segments. So, my conclusion is that they may not remember or even appreciate the trip. However, they will remember the act of having taken such a trip. I think that’s reward enough.

Dinosaur National Park, tonight’s stop, is a fabulous campsite. It more closely resembles the desert and canyons of the Southwest than the mountains and forests of the Tetons and Yellowstone. Like Big Horn National Forest, the seldom frequented campsites seem to have the most charm. While eating dinner, we watched the sun set over the canyon walls while listening to the burble of the Green River – all the while surrounded by million year old fossils yet to be excavated. Pretty cool!

From the kid front, today’s activity seemed to be some kind of reinvention of Harry Potter and Hogwarts with Zachary as Dumbledore. Zachary has fallen into Harry Potter hook, line and sinker on this trip. Since the beginning of the trip, he has read six books. Today he somehow convinced Sawyer and Quin to “read” from their “spell books” (which were really Harry Potter books that Zachary had already read). Zachary graded them and gave them various weights of homework (ie. one pound of homework, three pounds of homework, etc…) After their lessons, they started casting spells at each other. As we descended to the Flaming Gorge dam on the Green River, they were all screaming “luminos,” “stupify,” and other spells. At least they were occupied.

On to Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow where I hear that the rodents carry bubonic plague and the ticks spread Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I’ll make sure Jen knows…