3 4 3

Yep! I'm 3 for 3 on the Snake Scale. What are the odds? Maybe I should

play the lottery! Or maybe I just need to leave Moab! Yesterday was a

great day. We donned our warm clothes, umbrellas and boots and

headed, undeterred by weather, to see the Scenic By-ways 279 and 128.

Utah dose not disappoint when they say Scenic By-way...you

need to believe them.The 279 was a meandering road with the Colorado River on one side (so close you could hear it as you drove and could put your feet in it if you chose to) and red rock canyon walls on the other side. Called the Red Rock Gorge it was just that. Petroglyphs on the rock walls were amazing. Sadly, people have defaced some of them by adding "Mary

loves Clay" to these beautiful pictures.

We then headed over to the 128....another must see drive. Rufus got

to walk over the Colorado River on a foot bridge...whining the entire

time.But he did it! May beautiful sights and lots of river access.

There were many more people on this route on the 279, but still 

enjoyable. Both drives took several hours. At the end of the 128 

drive we found ourselves up on Hwy 70. This would be the furthest 

north we would be in Utah. Someone we had met in Bluff told us of 

some petroglyphs in a canyon called Sego. So we headed north to

Thompson Springs where you enter the Sego Canyon. Thompson Springs is 

a nearly deserted mining town. Back in the 40's (and earlier) they 

were mining coal up in the canyon and we saw several old mine shafts 

as we  drove further into it. But Thompson Springs was no more than a 

town full of boarded up and falling down homes, motels, railroad 

station ,cafe's and a 1 room school house which is still in use. We

will try to post some pictures of it soon.

Heading into the canyon we saw more and better preserved petroglyphs

than we had ever seen. Some were Anasazi, some were Ute, and some

have been dated back to OVER 7000 YEARS AGO.These were some nearly

life size images and writings. It was truly incredible. To imagine 

that you could still clearly see something that ancient was awesome 

. (not he "California surfer awesome but really awesome).Will our children's Glidden spray painted graffiti last as 

long? One has to wonder. As we continued up the canyon past the mines 

we saw many old homesteads and a wonderful old "cemetery" where the 

headstones either had never had names on them or they were so old  

had weathered off. It was a wonderful day...snakes and all.

Now for my daily Arch View Bashing. You may remember that I told you

there was only 1 trash can in this entire campground..excuse me

RESORT. It is not so centrally located and is actually a humungous

dumpster. How humungous, you ask? Well, they have had to install a

LADDER and steps in order for you to reach it to deposit your trash.

It might have been a better idea to take some of the extra money from

the "premiere" sites and purchase a 2nd or 3rd dumpster and NOT had to

have fabricated the ladder to the big one. Just a thought.

We paid $3.95 per gallon for fuel in Moab a few days ago. We're still

under $4 so we're still giddy. It's pouring down rain right now so we

will head to Moab for a Jalapeno Beer (3.2 is all you get in Utah so

we may have to drink several) and lunch. If the rain lets up we'll

try for a hike we didn't get to do the other day. Either way, it will

be a great day!