Today we moved from Moab to Blanding, UT. It was only a 77 mile driving day. We got to the RV park and took the toad out for the afternoon. First, we went to Natural Bridges National Monument, then Moki Dugway, and then Valley of the Gods.
(Today admission to all national parks is free. Hope you took advantage of the offer.)
Natural Bridges is a National Monument, not a National Park. But, it is the first National Monument in Utah. President Theodore Roosevelt, with the stroke of a pen, made Natural Bridges a National Monument in 1908. Theodore Roosevelt created a lot of national parks during his presidency, probably more than any other president. He created bird sanctuaries and national forests also. Interestingly, Natural Bridges is a small park. It is only 7,637 acres and the park ‘loop’ is only 9 miles. A natural bridge is different from an arch. Natural bridges are created by moving water and an arch is created by erosion.
Moki Dugway was the end of the paved road on State Highway 261 south of the park. The paved road comes to an end and becomes gravel. It’s narrow, steep, and has lots of switchbacks. The vertical drop must be over 1,000 feet and the road is at a 10% grade.
At the bottom of the mountain, we took County Road 242 through Valley of the Gods.The attraction is that the area is similar to Monument Valley, but on a smaller scale. THIS is not a county road as you might think of a county road- it’s worse, much, much worse! This is the WORST road we have been on for a long, long time. The road cuts through lots of dry-washes, and they just had a rain within the past few days. After we were on the road for over an hour, Connie read that we should allow 3 hours for this trip. Neither one of us wanted to spend another two hours on this road and the views were just more of the same. Fortunately, we weren’t as slow as the average traveler, and we got to the next road, a state highway, in less than two hours.
Here’s the photos of the day:
First, where we are today and the Natural Bridges story.
Above is our first view looking down from the top of Moki Dugway and here’s a shot of one of the switch backs. Goggle ‘moki dugway’ and look at some other photos. Quite interesting.
These are photos of our trek through Valley of the Gods. I think Connie is giving me ‘that look’ in the photo above. Is she saying, “Why are we doing this????” The next photo is the road. You’re looking at a slab of rock that is the road. The last photo is an above average photo of the road and the views in the background.
We finally made it to Bluff, UT for a nice dinner! We will have better travel days and better roads from here on out!
No comments:
Post a Comment