San Rafael Country August 27

We drove from the Jackson Hole to Price, Utah yesterday which took 7 ½ hours. We stopped at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum in Price on our way to the motel. As luck would have it, we had an hour to tour before closing at 6 pm. It had a fabulous collection of dinosaurs and fossils with great explanations. The visitor’s center for the area was in the lobby and a very knowledgeable woman gave us some interesting things to see on our way to Moab today. Our first stop was a one mile hike back to the Rochester Rock Art panel. This is the largest collection of petroglyphs on one rock we have ever seen and is considered one of the most unusual in Utah. Then we took the scenic Miller Canyon road to Interstate 70. The section of this interstate is probably the most beautiful in the entire US highway system. We traversed the San Rafael swell, a huge dome formed by pressure from under the earth leaving striking ridge-like formations sculpted by wind and water. The San Rafael Reef dominates the eastern side of the swell. The reef appears to be an impenetrable wall from the east and it was only in 1970 that the interstate was built through a pass in the reef. We had spectacular views the whole way!
The next stop was Goblin Valley State Park. As we drove in, we saw a small herd of prong horn sheep. We had a picnic lunch at the overlook and then walked down into the valley for a close up look at the stone gnomes. Actually, they look more like mushrooms and that was the name given to the valley by the discoverer. We needed to hurry as we could see a storm closing in. The wind came up on our way back and we were in the middle of a sand storm. We finally made it to the B&B that was to be our home for three days in Moab at 5:00.