Clifford Doesn’t Go Down a Ski Jump

May 15, 2024 – Day 61

Antelope Island State Park, Syracuse, Utah – Vernal / Dinosaurland KOA Holiday, Vernal, UT

Today was just a driving day, only a few interesting things happened and they weren’t that interesting. We had worried about driving over the 7 mile causeway and getting Clifford covered in bugs just like the Jeep got covered. It’s easy enough to reach the windshield in the Jeep to clean it. It’s a different story with Clifford’s big big windshield.

We saw a lot of pretty scenery, it was steep in places, steep and curvy in other places. We drove slowly and made it through ok, of course. Eventually we needed to stop for a driver’s change and that happened at a Walmart parking lot in Park City, UT. Parking lots are a frequent lunch stop for us but this one’s view was of three Olympic ski jumps that were used in the 2002 Winter Olympics. We declined to take Clifford up, and then down them. You see, the snow was gone and we figured it wouldn’t be safe.

Neither of us thought to get a picture of the ski jumps.

It was interesting to see how the vegetation changed once we got over the first set of mountains. Sorry about the odd color. We’ve been fighting that for the past week or so, the bright blue sky gives everything a weird blue cast. Paul tries to correct with with the Grey Balance tool, but we think we just need to put a gray card on a stick on the front of the coach. Just pretend it’s the right color of green.

We did get a very odd splatty rain while climbing the first set of mountain passes. At some elevations it seemed that it might be wanting to snow, and maybe it was but it thawed on the way down.

We wanted to get some gas. Not that we needed it but we can’t forget how hard it was trying to find gas in west Texas and the uncomfortable feeling wondering if you’d be stranded. Much of the southwest is like that so you get gas when you can. There weren’t many opportunities between our start at Antelope State Park and Vernal, UT which a Pilot but it seems…abandoned. Wow, what tiny station, no RV Fuel lanes so we just drove right on by.

Further across the town of Vernal, UT we got to the KOA/Dinosaurland. Well, when we say everything here is dinosaur driven we aren’t kidding. There are dinosaur statues of all sizes, shapes, material and colors all over town. It’s obvious that this town is a tourist town and dinosaurs are their claim to fame. There’s just too much of everything for a town of 10K people. After getting set up we decided to go out to dinner. Lots of restaurants to choose from and we decided to try Vernal Brewing Company. The food was really good and just what we needed to cap off a travel day. We’re hoping to make it back another time before we leave.

Daily: 214

Total: 5,302

Driving Miles/Day: 241

Overall Miles/Day: 87