in search of: dragons, ghosts, and fossils

Yesterday we had a plan.

Well, we had pockets full of them, actually. We were after dragons, ghosts, and dinosaur bones.

First stop was the cave, to see dragons! Well, okay. We don't live in medieval England, but the great west, so more likely we'd run into a bear, or mountain lion. That would have been alright, too... we were ambitious!

Even if we did not happen upon any cave-dwelling animals, these caves we were after are sporting Native American paintings on the walls, and then a few writings from pioneers when they trekked across this way.

We parked on the side of the road, jumped across the creek (with as big of a leap as we could muster), ducked under the barbed wire fence, climbed up the mountain, got ten feet - no kidding- away from the mouth of the caves and heard "Hello! Hey, you're on Private Property, you need to come down from there!"

Damn.

Now ordinarily I would have taken a quick peek, but I was concerned they could see us, even though we couldn't see them, and we didn't want to get shot at, or arrested upon our emerging from under the barbed wire fence.

So upon one last forlorn glance over our shoulders, we headed back down.

But we came across a few other interesting things from the day.

Like turkey vultures.

Then we came upon a few beautiful old buildings.

Aah, we had our ghosts! (we were heading next to the fossils, then a ghost town.) Stumbled upon these beauties along the way.

Next was a ghosty of another sort... we came upon this grave marker, it was for Masashi Coto, who was attempting to be the the first person to fly around the world. He crashed his plane, poor fellow. July 4, 1928.

Trev wanted to do some truck maintenance while we were stopped. 'Course, Maddie had to, too.

Then it was into the Uintas for us. Looking for those dang fossils that I have been trying to hunt down all summer.

We stopped along the way to pick some wild raspberries (who could resist?) and after playing for a while, when Eric got back into the truck, it wouldn't start. Oh, dear. Good thing our mechanic supplied us with a couple of fuses upon our last departure, and showed Eric what to do (remember that we've been twice stuck recently). So we had two extra fuses. Blew the first one without even getting the truck started. Oh, dear, again.

You can imagine our nervousness, we were over eighty miles from home. On a dirt road, without having seen anyone all day. Oh, dear.

We let the truck rest for a while, (before we blew the next fuse) and went for another walk up the beautiful mountain road.

Eric had visions of skinning something and gathering enough berries to feed his family, and had his eyes peeled for cans (garbage) that would be suitable to boil water to keep his loves alive.

Eventually we got home on the remaining fuse, and the good chap is still in the truck today. Along with 17 others. You think I jest, but I do not. We are well stocked.

We had plans to look for the fossils, which we did, but didn't dare drive any further up the mountain road to get ourselves to the place that we discovered them before.

So the ghost town and fossils would have to wait for yet another day.

Promised Trev that if we got home safely, and could find some fuses (we were on the very last one, remember, near a hundred miles from home, after seven oclock on a Sunday evening... what small town would have available parts at that time?) that we would go see UnderDog at the drive-in.

I am happy to say that we arrived home safely, scurried to pack up pillows, and headed to the drive-in. Stayed to watch Ratatouille again, also.

A big day.