Colorado to Las Vegas

The drive from Colorado into Utah (on our way to Las Vegas) made us feel like we were on the moon. The road was almost as bad….

We found out how these “ranchers” get around their ranch. They have their own airport.

Then we came to what was called the Green River, probably named because you drive for miles and see nothing but brown, and then all of a sudden there is greenery, next to the river.
At first I thought the hills had been stripped mined, but I found out they are in their natural state….I thought these hills looked like coal and later found out they are called Coal Cliffs.

As we started to head up a mountain, I was talking to my sister-in-law, Nanette, and had to keep putting the phone down to snap a picture. I finally lost cells and never did call her back because I was too busy snapping picture after picture. The rocks that just shot up in the air are spectacular.

This was my view
As we ascended the “mountain”

We stopped at one of the overlooks to take pictures. The magnificent cliffs, canyons, knolls and spirals are mostly cut from the 190 million Navajo Sandstone formation. Winds carried sandstone to this area and deposited it in sand dunes hundreds of feet high. As wind shifted the massive sandunes, the sands were deposited in a whirl of layers. Buried over eons of geological time, the sands ceased their movement and turned to stone. Water releases the grains of sand from the grip of stone. Even in this arid climate, water is the prime agent sculpting the stone into canyons, arches, and pinnacles.

This area was also a hiding place for famous outlaws, like Butch Cassidy, who escaped into these badlands with as many as 1,400 horses stoen from ranchers in California. Spanish explorers foged the trail about 1800. Later it became a route for slave traders. Native Americans were sold for as much as $200 each in Mexico City. Imagine what was in the minds of those prisoners as the traveled through this rugged area.

Almost to the top….

The formations were incredible.

We finally made it to the top (we think).

Just when you thought you saw any and every type of terrain, something new pops up.

We’ve been lucky most of this trip with hardly any traffic, as we got closer to Las Vegas, we were greeted with traffic, smog and 109 degrees in temperature!

I think we were nuts to leave Colorado, but we wanted to meet up with my daughter-in-law’s sister, Julie and her fiancé, Sean.