We left Sandy city this morning about 9.30 for Grand Lake, CO. We stopped at the Olympic Village at Park City - site of the 2002 Winter Olympics - and got some great pics of the ski jump track that was used. The drive to Park City from Salt Lake is absolutely spectacular. There were some light snow flurries, the Wasatch Mountains looked fabulous in the background, the sun was shining and there was a ghostly mist hanging over it all. The we headed on to Vernal, a sort of mid way point for lunch. Just as an fyi - most of our lunches are usually at quick fast food places....Taco Time or Taco Bell, Subway, Pizza Hut...that sort of thing. We try to do a good dinner at a restaurant.
After lunch, as we were heading east we came across the Dinosaur National Monument at Dinosaur, which is right at the Utah/Colorado border, so we decided to stop there and take a look. We had to take a shuttle to the dinosaur quarry a half mile on top of the mountain to the Visitor center. It was totally cool and fun to touch 65 million year old dinosaur bones. See pics attached of fossilized bones on the mountains. A quick note on our National Parks Pass....we are amazed at all the places we can use it. We saved $3 at Timponoga yesterday and $10 at the Dinosaur Park today. After this one hour unscheduled stop, we decided to continue on with no more breaks to Grand Lake. But about 27 miles before GL, we came across the Hot Sulphur Springs Resort and decided to take a dip in one of their 24 sulphur pools. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we didn't have our swimsuits with us to be able to use the public pools, and the private pools ($12 for one hour) were booked up, so that was that!
We got here - Grand Lake - at about 7.30, checked into Bighorn Inn and then went for dinner to Bear's Den across the street. Everything here has a bear theme! The restaurant was a log cabin with bear statues and models and paintings all over the place. I was sure they would not have anything vegetarian, but surprise...not only did they have a fairly good selection, it was delicious. R and I had tomato basil soup and a black bean wrap accompanied by a Merlot for him and a Pina Colada (non alcoholic) for me. It was a very good dinner. the place is all log cabins and saloons.......I really feel like i am in the Wild Wild West...except there's a Russian guy who runs this place!
In addition to my travel tip for the day, i will be adding 2 more categories. One is a rating for the place we are staying at and the third is a "Starbucks Sighting" category...
Travel tip - Always keep a bathing suit handy, you never know when you may need one!
Bighorn Inn Rating - 4 out of 5. Free internet, coffee and breakfast in the morning, large room, very comfy bed
Starbucks sighting - Appalling! Not one in sight from Salt Lake City till we got to Steamboat Springs, about 100 miles past the Utah/Co border as you're heading east on I-40. Its at the Safeway store at Steamboat Sprs.
1 comment:
Nice idea with this site its better than most of the rubbish I come across.
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