FRIDAY, August 15

This morning I took a shower in a very white bathroom; sure made my tan look quite impressive.  I did spend much of my two weeks at Valley View in the shade or covered up, and I certainly applied sun screen often, but over time I did turn a nice color.

We were surprised that there was no place to eat in Jenson, but I didn't starve; I had a chocolate chip cookie and peach for breakfast.  Then we toured the visitor center (excellent exhibits) before riding the open bus up to the quarry.  The wall of dinosaur bones is just as amazing and impressive as I remember from my visit 30-some years ago.  Hope at least some of the pix I took do it justice.

We thought we'd be able to eat lunch in Dinosaur before heading on the scenic drive, but none of the eateries were open.  We stopped at that much smaller visitor center (with a very taciturn ranger) and then took a spectacular drive through the Dinosaur National Park. No fossils - but oh the views!!! I took so many photos I'm surprised I didn't fill up the memory card.  We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves - but did have to slow down at one point for the last couple of elk stragglers crossing the road.

Wade called this morning to firm up plans for our visit with him in Craig this weekend, and gave us a 'heads up' about the cafe in Maybell: the owner, George, is an avid artifact collector.  Since that is the only place to eat between Vernal and Craig <g> we 'decided' to have lunch there.  We met George, and his wife Jeannette, and the guys swapped some rocks.  As an added bonus lunch was absolutely delicious - and huge.

When we neared Wade's house in Craig we stopped at a liquor store so Tom could run in and pick up some beer.  He returned to the truck sans beer, but with a story.  A woman had come  up to him and asked, "Are you Tom?" His first thought was that I'd put her up to it, but she turned out to be Wade's girlfriend Cindy - he'd asked her to pick up supplies for our visit.  She had noticed our AZ plates and recognized Tom from some pix of Wade's. Quite the coincidence!

The four of us went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant that smelled delicious, but I was still so stuffed from our huge lunch at 3:00 that all I got was a small house salad.