Dinosaur, Colorado

Left Steamboat about 12:15, headed on Route 40 to Salt Lake City, UT. Mixed feelings after what was clearly an eventful weekend. Sorry to say goodbye to family and friends, but very much excited for the freedom of the next 47 days. Can’t wait.

Really varied terrain between Steamboat and Salt Lake. Just west of Steamboat, the landscapes became really brown. Still very mountainous, but not the pine trees and high peaks I say between Denver and Steamboat. Instead, I saw more of what looked sand dunes, red rocky cliffs, and water-starved brush and weird looking trees. The towns themselves, including, Craig, where we had a semi-bizarre stop for coffee, were poorer, dustier, and more cowboy than they were extreme sports or sightseeing.

Maybe most depressing was Dinosaur, CO, the town closest to the Dinosaur National Monument, where visitors have access to great views, interesting plants and animals, and – if they’re lucky and diligent – dinosaur fossils. A very quick detour to the Monument found us sitting on a cliff eating nectarines and a very stringy mango. Pretty cool, but no dino bones.

The town itself a mix of rural poverty and tacky tourist trap. Much more of the same scenery and very small, poor towns in Eastern Utah. Life does not seem very easy in this part of the world, probably due both to the harshness of the landscape/conditions and the lack of any infrastructure, jobs, etc.

Finished audio book version of Turow’s Presumed Innocent. More character than plot, and took much longer to get in to than the Patterson volume, but ultimately quite good. I want to meet Painless Kumagai. Also very much looking forward to the sequel, Innocent, out a few months ago.