Our way back home

 We left our volunteer location on Tuesday, September 7 about 9am.  We drove almost 30 miles before we had a tire blow out so we pulled over and called a mobile tire repair place.  Since this is out west, the closest place was 55 miles from us. We were very lucky to have a very wide paved truck turn around area where we waited until the repair was complete.  

We continued on our way and the first interesting place we stopped was North Platte, Nebraska. Now you are wondering, what could be interesting in North Platte, NE (I was wondering that myself). As we are driving through the cornfields of NE, we saw this tower that seemed out of place.

This was the Golden Spike Tower. Although this was not the official location of the famous golden spike, this IS the location of the LARGEST railroad yard in the world, encompassing over 2800 acres! We went up in the tower to the observation deck so we could see as much as possible.

That was just the start of it as the yard was eight miles long.  In the next picture you can see the diesel shop where they can work on 37 diesel engines simultaneously. 

Moving on from there, we next stayed in Kansas and came across the town Victoria, a quiet village of about 1,000 people.  But here was the real surprise, there was a place called Cathedral of the Plains, which was a joint German and Russian Catholic cathedral that was the largest cathedral in the west. It was unbelievably beautiful and the inside looked much like so many cathedrals we have seen in Europe.

It was very pretty but it just seemed out of place.

The next night, we stayed at Kamopolis State Park near Lindsborg, KS which is a small town with deep roots in Sweden. We drove into Lindsborg about 8:30 in the morning and enjoyed a large cinnamon roll.

A short distance away was Mushroom Rock State Park and as you can see by the pictures below, it is appropriately named.

This completes our summer 2021 trip.  Thank you for riding along!

Flaming Gorge Dam

 The Bureau of Reclamation stopped giving tours of the dam because of Covid, but the volunteers were able to get a private tour. This picture is on the back side of the dam. I couldn't get it all in one picture but the height of the dam is 502 feet. I asked the dam tender (the person responsible for the operation of the dam) how thick the concrete was at the bottom of the dam.  Are you ready for this?  The concrete at the bottom of the dam is 150 feet thick!  It is 27 feet thick at the top.

Here is a picture of the side of the dam where it is imbedded into the rock on the sides.

We got to go all through the dam and this is a machinery room inside the dam

We then got to step out on a balcony about half way up on the dam and this is a picture of the Green River coming from the dam. Our volunteer site is located seven river miles downstream.

This pretty much wraps up our stay here.  We are leaving for home on Tuesday and will take several days to get there.  One more picture that is a reminder of a daily treat was the Fat Boy.  I don't know how many of these we ate, but I am certain it was more than two. 😊

Moonshine Arch

 When we go down to Vernal, UT to get groceries (just down the road a piece . . . about 40 miles) we drive past the sign for Moonshine Arch.  So we decided one day to leave a little earlier and stop to see Moonshine Arch.

The drive off the highway back to the parking lot made you feel like you could look around and possibly see John Wayne riding a horse back through the area.

We got to the parking lot then set off on foot for a short ~1 mile hike

The next pictures are from the arch itself.  This was a beautiful rock formation.

Two days later, the forestry service needed to work on the water line so since the water was going to be off, we drove up into Wyoming to Fossil Butte National Monument.  This was a lovely setting out in the middle of nowhere.  Not much activity on the highway  to get there.

When we arrived at the visitor center, they had a life size diorama of early archeologists looking for fossils.

The inside of the visitor center had over 300 fossils on display, but I could not get a good picture of them.  When we left the visitor center, there was a 5.5 mile trail we could drive, but it came with warnings.

We did not have any issues with the trail, so when we got to the top, we stopped and had a picnic lunch. 

After leaving Fossil Butte, we drove back through the town that has the first original J.C. Penney store, Kemmerer, WY

Inside, the store was decorated with original items it sold.

Something I found interesting was there was never any cash kept on the floor.  Instead, via a cable pulley system, the checkout clerk would send the money up to the bookkeepers that were on a locked balcony and the bookkeepers would return the change. I have seen similar systems in older department stores but using vacuum tubes instead of cables.

Red Cloud Loop

 We took a day off and drove a 45 mile section of dirt and gravel road called Red Cloud Loop.  For a dirt road it was pretty smooth and in the whole drive we did not meet one other car.  Here are some pics of Red Cloud Loop.

On the way to the Red Cloud Loop road, we did see a female mule deer and her fawns.

A few days later we drove down to Dinosaur National Monument Fossil Bone Quarry.  It was the best displayed archeological dig I can ever remember seeing.  When these fossils were first discovered in the early 1900's, the person leading the dig had the foresight to only dig the bones out half way and let the other half remain imbedded.  Then the building was built around the excavated remainder.  I'm not really into dinosaurs, but this was incredibly well done. They even left some near floor level so visitors could actually touch some dinosaur bones.  I can officially say I have now touched a real dinosaur bone.  You may have to click on one of the pictures to zoom in on the actual bones. 

Upon exiting the quarry wall building, you could take a tram back to the visitor center or walk the mile and view other parts of the area.  We walked and from the ground below, you could see the quarry wall building.

Then back in front of the visitor center, there was a life size cast dinosaur of just one of the more popular dinosaurs for the area.

I've had a few people ask me about the village near where we are staying, so we drove up to the plateau to try to get a picture of Dutch John, Utah.

We then drove to a place where we could get out and walk about a mile to get an overlook of the Green River that comes to where we are staying.  The river runs from the bottom towards the top of the picture.  You will probably have to double click on the picture to see the river.

OBSERVATION:

I mentioned before that the US Forestry service provides uniforms for us as well as name tags and a separate brass badge that reads "US Department of Agriculture - Forestry Service - Volunteer".  What I have noticed is visitors to the park enjoy calling us by our name.  Like it gives them a special connection to the authority of the park.  People seem to enjoy seeing a familiar face and go out of their way to be extra nice to us.  I had one guy come through at the booth who worked for a Caterpillar dealership.  On his third day, he gave me a CAT hat just because he wanted to say thanks.