An exciting day exploring Southern Utah in a pickup caravan… We carpooled, but there were still 15 trucks in a row…
Our first stop was Goosenecks State Park, overlooking a deep meander of the San Juan River. The park is located near the southern border of the state, a short distance from Mexican Hat, Utah.
A “meander” or restrained meander, is a river that cuts its way through the many layers of various types of stone to form features such as this…
What is fascinating to me is how this happened… This river wasn’t just flowing along the top of a mesa and over time carved its way down. No, the water was always flowing at this level, meandering along a wide, flat plain. It was the plain that was pushed up by volcanic pressures, and the river and gravity fought back, carving the many layers of stone.
The river is about 1,000 feet below the mesa at this point…
From here, we headed to the Moki Dugway, which is the access road to Muley Point. In contrast to Goosenecks, where the river was 1,000 feet below us, Muley Point is 1,000 feet above us, and the Moki Dugway is the way to get up the “mountain”. (Many of the caravaners are from places like Florida or Texas, so they are not familiar with real mountains…) Along the way we saw more impressive sights…
This is Muley Point, at the end of the mesa on the left…
The Muki Dugway was the access road carved into the side of the plateau to be used for access to uranium mines many years ago. Some found it frightening (there are no guardrails, it is very narrow and steep, and it is a gravel road…).
I thought that car down this steep embankment might have been one of the caravaners from last year, but I was informed that it was not…
As we arrived at the top we were treated to more fabulous views…
I even took a picture!
And a selfie…
Our next stop today was at Natural Bridges National Park… where we saw natural bridges…
Bridges have (or have had) flowing water beneath them, and the primary method of erosion was from this water… On the other hand, arches differ from bridges in that arches are formed by erosion by wind and the freeze-thaw cycle. We’ll see arches tomorrow…
After a long day touring, we returned to The Villa. We went to the Steakhouse adjacent to the campground and had steak for dinner (Porterhouse for 2…). The restaurant was 90% caravaners – I’m sure the proprietor was happy we were staying next door…
We returned once again to The Villa to relax with a little TV. I sat in my Eames chair as I usually do. But what the chair did was not usual…
Yes, the entire back collapsed off the base… I’ll have to stand up the rest of the trip… We loaded the pieces into the truck; we’ll have to take it to be repaired when we return.
So this evening an enjoyable time was not had by me…
Adventures in the Villa 