Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

Thursday we spent most of the day relaxing at the 5 th wheel and getting caught up on some chores.  After lunch we took a tour of the Flaming Gorge Dam.   Construction of Flaming Gorge Dam, as part of the Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP), began in June 1958 with the last bucket of concrete placed on November 15, 1962.   On December 10, 1962, the waters of the Green River began filling the reservoir behind Flaming Gorge Dam and nearly a year later on September 27, 1963, President John F. Kennedy initiated the first power generation at Flaming Gorge Power plant. President Kennedy agreed to return the next year to dedicate the dam, but as we all know, he was assassinated a few weeks later. The dam was dedicated on August 17, 1964, by First Lady, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson.  The power plant is now operated by Western Area Power Authority and the electricity generated is used by the Western states.  We were fortunate to be the only people on this tour so we got a more personal

Our refrigerator is empty and the cupboards are getting bare so we headed to Vernal, UT on Wednesday morning to go grocery shopping.  Before we went shopping we drove to Dinosaur National Monument which is along the Colorado/Utah border East of Vernal.   Our first stop was at the Quarry Visitor Center where we boarded a shuttle that took us to the Quarry Exhibit Hall.  Paleontologist Earl Douglass discovered and began excavating fossils at the quarry for the Carnegie Museum in 1909.   Dinosaur National Monument was established in 1915 to preserve the quarry.  The Quarry Exhibit Hall is built around the quarry which displays many of the fossils found here (some still remain where they were found).     The display of fossils found in the quarry was very impressive.   After taking the shuttle back to the Quarry Visitor Center we drove on the Cub Creek Road and followed the Tour of the Tilted Rocks.  The Green River cuts through Split Mountain here ins

We left Jack’s Gulch Campground on Friday morning and drove as far as Jensen, UT where we spent the night at the Outlaw RV Park.  This park is basically hookups in a gravel parking lot and the sights are really close together. The park has mostly long term residents who look like they are oil field workers - we are glad we are only spending the night here. We arrived at Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area late Saturday morning and are staying at Pine Forest Park which is one of our membership parks with Camper World.  This is a very nice RV park with large, grassy sites and shade trees.   The weather here is wonderful, in the mid 80’s during the day, much cooler than we had in Loveland.  Like all of the Southwest it is very dry here and there is a fire ban in effect.  There is a Forest Service trail behind the campground that leads to a cliff overlooking Flaming Gorge Reservoir.   The trail is 2.5 miles round trip so it makes for a great morni

We left Loveland on Monday and headed up the Poudre Canyon where we were able to see the devastation from the High Park fire.   It has been about 4 years since we were in the Poudre Canyon and it made us heartsick to see it burned.  We camped at Jack’s Gulch, a Forest Service campground along the Pingree Park Road, our favorite campground when we were living in Ft. Collins.   The High Park fire was stopped here at the Pingree Park Road, so the downhill side of the road was burned and the uphill side was not – what a contrast.   We were happy to find that Jack’s Gulch Campground had not been harmed by the fire but were dismayed at the amount of damage done to the trees by the pine bark beetle.   Many of the dead trees had been removed and they have sprayed most of the remaining trees.  The Forest Service has also planted hundreds of tiny trees, but it will take a long time for them to get big.  We noticed a lot of large trees had fallen over and the campground hosts told us t

We left the Black Hills on Wednesday morning and headed to Colorado.   We ran into a rainstorm by just before Newcastle. WY and it was overcast all the way to Loveland where it rained after we got set up.   We are staying at Loveland RV Resort.   The High Park fire is almost under control and we are glad that there is hardly any smoke here.      First thing Thursday morning we took the Jeep to Dinks Auto.   They spent a few days trying to unseize the motor but finally decided that it was ruined so we ordered a new engine.        It took about two weeks to get the new engine and have it installed. They also had to replace the clutch as it was bad.   The Jeep is running great and we need to put 500 miles on it and bring it back for an oil change and to make sure everything is working properly.   This was a very expensive lesson and we will make sure the Jeep is not in gear before we tow it from now on!   We learned it does not pay to get in a hurry when we are hooking up and ge