Independence Monument This is our last real day of sightseeing. We’re off to Grand Junction to visit Colorado National Monument. We take Utah 128 through the Colorado Canyon always a scenic drive. After setting up camp, we head for the monument. After 3 weeks of sandstone, it is sort of anticlimactic, but surprise! We actually have new layers of sandstone, the Morrison layer filled with dinosaur bones and the Dakota formation. These are on top of our usual Entrata and Navajo sandstone. We took a nature trail, but there were no booklets left. Of course, at this point, we guess what the signs are pointing to – we know most of the desert plants and rock layers. We even know most of the animals including those that live in potholes.
There are some beautiful views: Independence monument and Ute Canyon with its fall colors are particularly beautiful.
So how do you sum up this vacation? While I’ve labeled it the Utah vacation or more accurate summary would be the Colorado plateau vacation: western Colorado, Northern Arizona, and Southern Utah. We’ve seen a lot of red sandstone everywhere, encountering the same layers over and over, but in different formations. The highlights were Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Zion Park (big horn sheep and the hummingbird talk), and our drive down Shaffer Trail in Canyon land. We were shocked at how many Europeans we saw everywhere, especially once you were hiking. I was expecting to see them in the major National Parks, but we met many every day. Most were young couples from Germany, Holland, and England who we ended up talking to as well as lots of other languages that we didn’t know.
There are some beautiful views: Independence monument and Ute Canyon with its fall colors are particularly beautiful.
Ute Canyon
So how do you sum up this vacation? While I’ve labeled it the Utah vacation or more accurate summary would be the Colorado plateau vacation: western Colorado, Northern Arizona, and Southern Utah. We’ve seen a lot of red sandstone everywhere, encountering the same layers over and over, but in different formations. The highlights were Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Zion Park (big horn sheep and the hummingbird talk), and our drive down Shaffer Trail in Canyon land. We were shocked at how many Europeans we saw everywhere, especially once you were hiking. I was expecting to see them in the major National Parks, but we met many every day. Most were young couples from Germany, Holland, and England who we ended up talking to as well as lots of other languages that we didn’t know.
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