Here There and Everywhere

Chasing Petroglyphs: A Ride Down Flaming Gorge

This was not the day I expected. I only put Vernal on the map as a halfway to Moab, or sort of, and there was the Dinosaur National Monument, which I had never heard of but knew AdventureMan would love.

The night before, we looked at the map and found Hgwy 530, going south from Green River, WY to Manila, UT, a scenic highway paralleling Flaming Gorge. It was designated a scenic highway, and with a look at the map, we thought we would see more water. All in all, it’s just a way to get to our next stop.

The ride to Manila was uneventful. We stopped a couple times, the scenery was nice but nothing to really write about.

We stopped for gas just across the border from Wyoming into Utah, and got a little bit of sticker shock, and a little bit of humor – Cowboy Gas!

Out of Manila, however, oh holy wow. Utah has great signage, so while the rocks and hills were full of color, we also knew exactly what we were looking at. There were frequent turn-outs with informative and readable and illustrated scripts. The colors and the views were phenomenal.

We stopped for lunch at the Flaming Gorge Resort, not at all what you think of in terms of a resort. There were some nicer-looking log cabins and a whole lot of RV parking and camping facilities. The Restaurant/Gift shop was very down-home; the gift shop stocked with every kind of fishing equipment you can imagine a fisherperson would covet; clothing, lures, rods/reels, things I don’t even know what they were.

The restaurant was family-oriented, we both broke the rules and had hamburgers, the Flaming Gorge hamburger, with jalapeños. In truth, we barely noticed what we were eating because we had received an e-mail with airline reservations for our November trip that we don’t like at all. It has us routed through three plane changes before we get to our destination. I cannot imagine a more sure way to have a piece of luggage go missing.

Our trip manager had warned us we would receive it and NOT TO CONFIRM, NOT TO EVEN RESPOND the day before we left on the trip, but it was still unsettling.

We soon forgot our jangled nerves as we departed Manila and experienced some of the most beautiful and dramatic landscapes we can remember. Geological upheavals everywhere, from all different periods. Places full of sea fossils and fish scales. Bands of iron-red deposits stretching for miles, lighting up the landscapes. A 30-minute drive took us about an hour and a half as we stopped at every outlook and gasped with delight. It never got old. 

Coming into Vernal, we were exhausted, and our room at the Springhill Suites was waiting for us! We had gotten confirmation via text that our room was ready at 0830 before we had even left the Outlaw inn, a first for us. We rested, and then headed out in search of more petroglyphs, on the McConkie Ranch, about 13 miles out of Vernal.

June 11, 2022 - Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure, Beauty, Local Lore, Road Trips, Travel | Flaming Gorge, Utah