I rolled out of my tent about 6:30 this morning.  It had sprinkled a little bit during the night and so I had to pack up my tent wet – that’s always fun.

Today was pretty uneventful, just driving from Estes Park, CO to Vernal, UT.  Tomorrow, I’m going to Dinosaur National Monument.  I stopped for a few pictures on my way out of Rocky Mountain NP, but the western side doesn’t offer quite as many nice mountain views, so I didn’t stop that often.

I thought driving across the Dakotas and Nebraska can be desolate, but that was until I drove through northwestern Colorado today.  Talk about empty apparently worthless land. The landscape is interesting, but there’s absolutely nothing between Steamboat Springs and the Utah border and that’s close to 200 miles.  There was one stretch of 57 between towns that even had gas stations.  There were a couple of little “towns” in between but they were little more than a couple of run down buildings and maybe a house.

I got to Verrnal, UT and it was a blistering 97 degrees.  I set the tent up and then couldn’t take it.  I grabbed a bite to eat in town and then went to see the movie “The Lady in the Water”.  It was another of those off the wall M. Night Shyamalan (sp?) movies.  All in all it was pretty good and when the movie was over it had cooled down quite nicely outside.  It’s now in the low 80s with a light breeze and the temp should drop into the 60s – perfect!