UnCaged Travels: Part 2 - Summer Vacation

Moving on down the road...

The vacation continued with more touring of the desert and high country of Utah. Plus traveling to more cooler temperatures and rainy weather in Wyoming and exploring the Grand Teton National Park on our way toward Cody, Wyoming.

Vernal, Utah

As we continued our way north from the Duck Creek/Cedar City area we stopped at an RV Park in Vernal, Utah for a couple of days to stock up on supplies for our next mountain camping in the Ashley National Forest near the Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

Vernal, Utah is dinosaur country! As aliens are to Roswell, NM - the dinosaurs are to Vernal. They can be found almost on every corner. The popular nearby attraction is the Dinosaur National Monument.

The Welcoming Dinosaur

Scary dinosaurs

Unusual dinosaur

Colorful dinosaur

However, we decided on a more low key adventure by Geocaching around the area. Driving up a canyon a few miles out of town on our way to a cache... we spotted the McConkie Ranch Petroglyphs, Utah Historic Site, found on private land where the owner graciously welcomes visitors on a donation basis to view the site. Again, Geocaching brought us to another unique location that we wouldn't have found or known about. The rock imagery panels are noted as some of the best preserved and most iconic expressions of the Fremont culture in the region. It sure made us say 'Wow'.

Another Geocache site we went to was in the old historic downtown Vernal to see the old bank building built in 1916 in a very unusual way....

History of the Vernal Bank known as the 'Parcel Post Bank'. Currently is the Zions Bank.

In the summer of 1916, William Horace Coltharp, one of the directors of the Bank of Vernal, wanted pressed bricks to help build a new two-story home for the bank and other local businesses. Although he planned to use cheaper, locally-fired bricks for most of the building, he wanted pressed bricks for its facade.

At the time it was built, there was a dispute of some kind with the freighting companies in the area and shipping the bricks from Salt Lake City via the freight companies would cost too much. To get around this issue, someone discovered that the post office would not charge nearly so much as the freighters for the same package, so all the bricks for the building were MAILED via U.S. Postal Service to Vernal. The bricks were individually wrapped in paper and packed ten to a wooden crate to meet the maximum allowable 50-pound limit for packages. In total, the bricks filled 1,500 crates and weighed about 37 ½ tons. It was too late for the U.S.P.S. to do anything about it once it caught on, but after this building was built, they did make a regulation that one person cannot send over 50 pounds of mail in one day. The brickwork on the bank building was completed by November 1916.

Again, Geocaching for the unique history or location!

Parcel Post Bank - Google photo from back in the day

Current day Zions Bank

Ashley National Forest

Once we had toured Vernal and found some more highly favored geocaches we were ready to leave this dinosaur infested town and head to a higher elevation. Our destination was Ashley National Forest (ANF) which includes the popular Flaming Gorge Reservoir area. The ANF encompasses about 1.4 million acres in northeastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming. Elevations range from 5,500 feet on the Green River at it's northern/eastern border to 13,528 feet at the summit of King's Peak (the highest point in Utah). This is largest east-west trending mountain range in the lower 48 states.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir

John Wesley Powell was not the first to navigate the Green River corridor but he was the first to explore and document his findings along the way. In May of 1869 Powell disembarked on one of his famous boat trips down a wild river, the Green River, he entered the canyon at the base of the surroundings mountains and once his eyes view the brilliant red gorge below he named it "Flaming Gorge". Today it is known for great fishing and beautiful views along with the surrounding mountains that offer camping among the pine trees, wildlife, etc.

Since cell service was non-existent at our campsite, so every couple of days, we would make a sunset run a few miles down the road to the Sheep Creek Outlook to check our texts, emails, etc. The view was breathtaking and we enjoyed watching the clouds go by or boaters far, far away.

From Sheep Creek Lookout

Our Campsite in the Ashley N.F. above Flaming Gorge reservoir

Sunset from our campsite

We were so excited to find a Moose on one of our geocaching trips deep in the woods.

Another day another beautiful sunset.
You can never have too many beautiful sunsets.

We always say that Geocaching takes us to places we might not otherwise explore. Here are a few more examples of great geocaching finds:

Moose Pond

1937 Historical Fire Tower which we got to go up
and see the view and learn the history of 'the day and life of a fire watch'

Cache in a natural limestone cave

Tower Rock

As we continue on our journey the next stopover for a couple of nights was Kemmerer, WY. Kemmerer is a small town with limited facilities and attractions but not far from there we were able to explore the mountains where we found the oldest Wyoming geocache, cooler mountain temperatures, flowers and unique waterfalls.

The 'Big Spring' geocache brought us to this great waterfall

This huge spring just bubbles up out of the ground from under the rock face.

The flowers were blooming and the moss layered thickly on the rocks in the stream.

After some scenic Jeeping and a short hike, we found Wyoming's oldest
geocache - Bridger-Teton

Our next destination was the very popular Jackson Hole and the Grand Teton National Park. As Jackson is a crowded tourist town with packed RV parks we were lucky enough to score the perfect RV site about 45 minutes from town at Rim Station RV park. Mountains, green valleys and animals were viewed from our site. It was very relaxing.

RV site at Rim Station RV Park.

Our first trip into Jackson Hole was a rainy day and we knew the Grand Tetons would be enveloped in clouds so we did some walking around downtown, shopping and, of course, geocaching.

The famous antler arch in downtown Jackson, WY

Jack having a conversation with ole' Slim hanging
out in downtown Jackson. I think he told Jack
where the geocache was.

Taxi anyone....

A geocache tour took us to many places in the downtown area and one was the oldest building in Jackson which has quite an interesting history. It was built in 1915 as a livery and in 1918 ts was converted into the Yellowstone stage coach company, taking visitors to and from nearby Yellowstone Park. Then in 1930 it became a Model T Dealership. As the 1930s rolled along it became a bowling alley, mercantile and the local post office (some of the original PO boxes are onsite). In 1948 a gal by the name of Vera Cheney brought her first piano player from New York City and transformed the building into a theater. Today, The Playhouse, houses a very fun, lively western musical complete with comedy, shootouts, good food and lots of entertainment.

It's a bear !!!!!

The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar was established in 1937. Known for it's
country western dancing and big name live entertainers.
A very popular place.

Due to the rain...We extended our stay at the RV park in hopes the weather would clear up enough in a day or so that we could sneak a peak at the Grand Tetons. As luck would have it on our last day it was the clearest day we had our entire stay and we could see most of the grand rock mountains with some lingering clouds. As we drove the Teton Park Road we were in awe at the breathtaking heights of these rocky mountains and enjoyed many stops along the way to soak up all the beauty.

Grand Teton National Park took decades to establish. The original part of the park was created in 1929 to protect the Teton Range and several lakes at the foot of these grand rugged mountains. In 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt had visited the area and in 1943 declared additional land in the valley to be Jackson Hole National Monument. Then in 1949, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated the land he purchased to the government to be included in the national park. Finally in 1950 Congress combined the original park, the national monument and the Rockfeller lands to establish present day Grand Teton National Park.

Chapel of the Transfiguration. This small log chapel, built in 1925, offers spectacular views of the Teton Mountain Range and a majestic place to pray.