Utah Trip Day 8

June 5, 2000

Today was moving day but it turned out not to be to Hoovenweep! I was up early, broke camp and made it onto the road in good order. I even had time to stop for breakfast and do some shopping in Moab. The road to Hoovenweep is route 191 south from Moab going through Montecello and Blanding to the junction with route 262 east. However, just outside Blanding the road is being rebuilt for about 10 miles. They have decided to do a very through job and removed the old road entirely in order to start from scratch. Traffic flow is maintained by using a "convoy" technique where 10 - 20 cars are lead through the construction zone by a lead truck with a "Follow Me" sign on it. The path through the construction was terrible with a maximum speed of perhaps 15 MPH, or the car felt like it would shake itself apart. Needless to say all my attention was on the road trying to avoid what craters I could and I missed the turn off to Hoovenweep. When I arrived in the next town (Bluff) it was obvious what had happened. The idea of retracing the construction zone to look for the turn of was not at all appealing. At his point I started to question whether I really wanted to see more sun baked rocks. The weather report that morning was for 105 Deg in Salt Lake City and god knows what that far south, clearly a change in plans was called for . I got out my trusty Rand McNally road atlas and looked for something good.

The possibilities in this untraveled stretch of geography soon came down to 2. Natural Bridges NP to the NW and Mesa Verde NP to the East in Colorado. Since I had just spent a couple of days looking at arches of one sort or another, the prospect of more of the same did not appeal to me. (BTW There is a distinction between a "bridge" and an "arch" as natural features. An arch is formed by weathering forces like wind, freeze / thaw cycles and rain damage. A bridge is formed by water flowing in a channel that cuts through the neck of a meander in a canyon.) Since Hoovenweep is an "archeology" park Mesa Verde would be a good substitute. Besides "Mesa Verde" means "Green Table" in Spanish and I felt I could use some green in my scenery.

The road to Mesa Verde comes close to the famous "Four Corners" point where four states share a common point. I passed within five miles of the point but did not want to spend the extra time to go out of my way to see it. It is an artificial point in the middle of nowhere and since I was already in the middle of nowhere, I saw no point in claiming one point is more significant than another.

Mesa Verde has turned out to be a good choice. I had to pay another entrance fee since it is not included in my "Area Pass" for the Moab region. The campsites are very nice with SHADE and a "tent only" section so I don't have to listen to generators, water pumps, screen doors, power awnings, etc. etc. There is even a "General Store" in the area with showers and a laundry.

What I have seen of the park so far is fairly interesting. The focus, as at Hoovenweep, is the remains of buildings from the "Anasazi" Indian culture and the famous "Cliff Dwellings". Since preservation is one of the primary objectives of the park, access to some of the ruins is by guided tour only, much as at various cave parks. Indeed you would not WANT to crawl around some of the sites since they are hard to get to and ARE on the edges of cliffs.

I've booked two nights here and heard that there is a narrow gauge steam rail line in the vicinity as well as the park attractions. The weather is a definite improvement. At 8 PM the temp is about 50 Deg F and I've dug out my sweatshirt for the first time.

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