September 13, 2007
September 13, 2007
Last night we attended the ranger talk at Bryce National Park. Once a month the Utah NASA ambassador speaks here. He gave an enjoyable talk on the solar system and the spaceships enroute to the planets and what they have been finding. Afterwards we all went to a darkened parking lot and did some telescope viewing. We saw Jupiter and a bunch of fuzzy nebulas and galaxies. Travelling in an RV, you learn how big the US and the earth are. Looking in a telescope, you realize how little the earth really is.
In the morning we left Bryce heading east along scenic Rt. 12. In the town of Cannonville, UT, we stopped at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument visitor center. The BLM Bureau of Land Management runs it. I don’t understand the government politics of having different branches running these parks. This park is relatively new and most of it is fairly remote. The ranger suggested continuing on scenic Rt.12 for some of the best views.
Before doing that we drove ten miles southeast to Kodachrome Basin state park. It is a small park with some badland cliffs and red monoliths reminiscent of Jumbo Rocks in California’s Joshua Tree National Park. The park does have an unusual number of very tall, skinny, phallic-like rock chimneys sticking up all by themselves in odd places. I later learned these were petrified geysers. The park name implies that it is very photogenic. It is nice but the name is an exaggeration. Before leaving we hiked the Nature trail and Angel’s Palace trail.
Back on scenic Rt. 12 we drove to Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. There we picked a site for the night and later did an evening hike on the Petrified Forest and Sleeping Rainbows trail. It was less than two miles but very nice. We passed by loads of petrified logs lying everywhere. Almost all were the highly mineralized and vividly colored specimens. Aimee and I both like this park better than the better-known Petrified Forest National Park because the logs seemed to be in more natural settings. We had a little bit of a scare on the trail. I was looking off the side of a horseshoe-shaped dry waterfall when this giant jackrabbit distracted Aimee and me. A few seconds later we heard a crash about 15 yards off, turned around, and watched a dead tree fall off the cliff edge bringing a ton of rocks with it. Yes, the earth is indeed constantly changing; only I want to be an observer, not a participant!
Last night we attended the ranger talk at Bryce National Park. Once a month the Utah NASA ambassador speaks here. He gave an enjoyable talk on the solar system and the spaceships enroute to the planets and what they have been finding. Afterwards we all went to a darkened parking lot and did some telescope viewing. We saw Jupiter and a bunch of fuzzy nebulas and galaxies. Travelling in an RV, you learn how big the US and the earth are. Looking in a telescope, you realize how little the earth really is.
In the morning we left Bryce heading east along scenic Rt. 12. In the town of Cannonville, UT, we stopped at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument visitor center. The BLM Bureau of Land Management runs it. I don’t understand the government politics of having different branches running these parks. This park is relatively new and most of it is fairly remote. The ranger suggested continuing on scenic Rt.12 for some of the best views.
Before doing that we drove ten miles southeast to Kodachrome Basin state park. It is a small park with some badland cliffs and red monoliths reminiscent of Jumbo Rocks in California’s Joshua Tree National Park. The park does have an unusual number of very tall, skinny, phallic-like rock chimneys sticking up all by themselves in odd places. I later learned these were petrified geysers. The park name implies that it is very photogenic. It is nice but the name is an exaggeration. Before leaving we hiked the Nature trail and Angel’s Palace trail. 
Back on scenic Rt. 12 we drove to Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. There we picked a site for the night and later did an evening hike on the Petrified Forest and Sleeping Rainbows trail. It was less than two miles but very nice. We passed by loads of petrified logs lying everywhere. Almost all were the highly mineralized and vividly colored specimens. Aimee and I both like this park better than the better-known Petrified Forest National Park because the logs seemed to be in more natural settings. We had a little bit of a scare on the trail. I was looking off the side of a horseshoe-shaped dry waterfall when this giant jackrabbit distracted Aimee and me. A few seconds later we heard a crash about 15 yards off, turned around, and watched a dead tree fall off the cliff edge bringing a ton of rocks with it. Yes, the earth is indeed constantly changing; only I want to be an observer, not a participant!
posted by Mike and Aimee at 9:38 AM
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