August 3: The Rocks Hold Secrets

In yesterday’s blog, were you able to find the backpacker figure?  And I do not mean Janet.

Today we ventured into the official part of Dinosaur National Monument, on the south side of the Green River.

Almost all the canyons in the northern part of the Colorado Plateau drain into the Green River or into rivers, like the Yampa and San Rafael, which themselves drain into the Green River.  Eventually, the Green River merges with the old “Grand River” in Canyonlands National Park at Moab to form the mighty Colorado River, which in turn carved out Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon.  Unfortunately, the importance of the Green River has been obscured because the state of Colorado wanted the former Grand River to be renamed the Colorado River (in 1924), thus monopolizes its fame.  Powell went down the Green River, not the Grand River out of Colorado.  The Green deserves better.

Entering Dinosaur with our Golden Passes (do not thank goodness, thank  Congress), we discarded any thought of taking the bus to the dinosaur quarry—thereby evading thousands of families with four-year olds.

We headed instead to the Cub Creek road and Josie Morris’s cabin.

  Along the way, we passed many working ranches, but Josie’s was special because she lived alone in her cabin without electricity, telephones, plumbing, or even floors.  She died there in 1963 at age 89, after breaking her hip in a fall.  These are some nice pictures of her at the cabin,

 but I like the one not on display that shows her aiming her rifle.  She liked being alone with God’s creatures.  Now her cabin is a picnic area for adventurous RV-ers to give their teenagers something else old to gawk at in addition to overgrown reptiles and birds.

This whole area is mountainous,

and up on some of the Wingate sandstone are more petroglyphs (of course).

By now, we are looking for unusual images that we seldom, if ever, see elsewhere.  Here’s Janet looking at a lounge of lizards.

  (OK, I had to look that one up.)  They are unique,

 especially the 5-foot lizard carved into the side of a huge boulder.

The park encourages visitors to stare and photograph the petroglyphs, and indeed the glyphs seemed themselves seemed welcoming to us.

  Clearly, some of the Fremont people would have made great major league catchers, at least handling intentional walks.

 Some of the women were real “lookers,”

 but then a few guys did not mind displaying their virtues either.

  (I think the target on the chest may have been placed by an early feminist.)  Some of the male dancers were clearly defensive about being stared at.

The blame for such explicit display undoubtedly belongs to the Kokopelli icon at one of the sites.

 The mountain sheep certainly seems to have responded with glee by donning his dancing slippers.

These rock artists showed a willingness to innovate and try out new ideas.  They would not have been surprised by modern impressionist techniques.

 Was there a Van Gogh among them as well?

Time to leave.