Bunnies and Split Mountains

Friday August 7, 2015         Day 10        Dinosaur National Monument, Green River C.G., site 1,  2^nd day

Had to go to work today.  No coffee with fire.  Had to have my coffee at my desk (picnic table with a view) while I worked on my computer to get you readers my blogs.  Even ate my daily breakfast banana while working.  Spent most of the morning sorting pictures, storing them in the right folders, setting aside the ones to be uploaded, writing the blog on Word, and finally editing, adding the pictures, and posting.  It’s time consuming, but I enjoy doing it.  We have a 3G signal here, so we have to take advantage of it.  Completed the post for Wednesday, Hahn’s Peak Lake.  Still had Thursday to do.

It was pretty cool morning, in the low 60’s and cloudy.  We went for a hike after completing our blogs, about 10:00.  There is a trail that connects this campground with Split Mountain campground.  It follows the Green River and has a constant view of Split Mountain.  It runs along some bluffs and cliffs overlooking the river and offers incredible views of Split Rock Mountain and the unusual rock formations and patterns. 

 

Along the trail was lots of rabbits.  I have never seen so many.  You can get within about 4 ft. of them before they move, and then they just run a few feet away.  Easy to get pictures. 

Three in a row on the trail.

I could have almost picked him up

 

At an overlook, I saw a great blue heron land on the point of a gravel bar and stood there like a statue.  I watched him through the Nikons.  An hour later, when we came back, he was still there in the same spot, standing like a statue.  He must be waiting for a fish to come by and spear it with his beak.  I have seen great blue herons do that.

 

I had to really zoom to get the GBH

Other wildlife on the trail was a cormorant who just landed on a boulder in the middle of the river.  He was holding his wings out to dry them, evidently because he was just diving for fish.  He must use this rock a lot because the back side of it is white, for some reason.

Cormorant drying his wings, sitting on his favorite rock in the Green River.

I noted to Marsha, that when hiking or walking in Yellowstone N.P. it is very common to find animal bones.  Since being in Colorado and Utah, have not come across any even though the habitat is similar.  Right after I said that, I found a small thigh bone in a gully next to the trail.  I don’t know what critter it was from.

 

The total round trip was 3 miles, according to my Garmin GPS.  The trailhead sign said 1 mile each way.

Just before we got back to the campground, it started raining, lightly.  By the time we got to the camper it got heavier and the temperature dropped.  We couldn’t sit outside.  We made some sandwiches for lunch and then decided to go play tourist and see the Dinosaur Quarry exhibit at the visitor center.  They take you on a shuttle to a building that is built into the side of a cliff wall, enclosing an area excavated to expose hundreds of actual dinosaur bones.  I hope they show up OK in the photos.  This was really awesome to see. 

 

It was still raining when we got back but started to let up.  I wiped the table off and started up the office again.  Completed the blog for our first day at Dinosaur and posted.

We made some snacks for “dinner” and munched on them and drank some real beer.

The rock formations around the area really look beautiful in low light such as dusk.  We took a drive to the Canyonlands section in Colorado to see what’s there.  There was a county road cutoff that was called Blue Mountain road that looked like a shortcut to Hardin Ridge Road, the road that goes to the canyon.  We took the county road (unpaved) and it was a nice adventure.  It climbed up onto a ridge where the views were stupendous.  It was all sagebrush with no other roads or ranches.  There was fences and cattle guards.  It was all open range but we saw no cattle.  Saw lots and lots of rabbits.  We finally came to the paved road and went a few miles to a canyon lookout.  That’s as far as we went.  It was getting dark.  Working our way back to US-40 (we didn’t want to take the county road in the dark) we encountered numerous mule deer and got some pictures of some posers.  Had to pass a cow in the road. 

 

By the time we made it back to the campground, it was completely dark.  That was a little after 09:00.  But we caught these sunset pictures on the way home.

 

 

Our plan is to leave for Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area tomorrow.  We are about 30 miles from Vernal Utah.  We don’t know where we are going to stay at this time.  A concern we have is trying to find a place to stay on a Saturday.    But we are miles from any cities.  So we may be worrying for nothing.