November 16, 2020
Arches to Bryce via a lot of fascinating places.
We stayed at Red Cliffs Lodge and woke to this in the morning outside our room.
We doubled back to Arches National Park to see the Delicate Arch, which we had run out of time the day before to visit. It is the symbol of Arches National Park, but I must say our previous day was far more interesting.
Then we hopped on the 313 to Dead Horse State Park. Dead Horse looks over the Canyonlands, and if you don’t have a few days to spend in Canyonlands, this is a great way to get an overview.
Colorado River flowing through Canyonlands
Within the Canyonlands, they harvest potash through evaporation.
It begins by pumping water from the Colorado River deep underground to reach the potash ore, which lies about 3,900 feet below the surface. The water dissolves the soluble potash into a brine, which is then pumped into underground caverns. Once it is fully dissolved, the potash brine is pumped into an evaporation pond.
The water in the evaporation ponds is dyed bright blue to help it absorb more sunlight and heat. This reduces the time it takes for the potash to crystallize, at which point it can be removed and processed for use as fertilizer.
Taking 191 to 70 we stopped at the Elgin Cemetary in Green River. So today I learned another self-descriptive adjective, I am a taphophile (an excessive interest in graves and cemeteries). This brought me to the Elgin Cemetery, located in Elgin which is considered a ghost town, incorporated into the city of Green River, although their cemetery is still active.
The cemetery contains the remains of civil war veterans, Spanish-American War veterans, WWI, WWII, Viet Nam, and Afghanistan vets.
A casualty of the Spanish-American War
What makes this place so unique is the desire to bring a memory to an area where flowers and trees simply can not grow due to lack of water. How they celebrate their dead is one of the most unique sites I have seen. There are plastic flowers, celebrations of interests, such as bees, not to be understood by an outsider, but ways to just say, we were here.
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We continued down Hwy 70 to Salina. Here we stopped in on a German POW camp. During WWII over 425,000 POWs were sent across the US to camps. Nearly 15,000 were sent to Utah. The camps were staffed by American soldiers who were unable to fight overseas for reasons including physical to disciplinary issues The Salina camp was home to one soldier that disgraced both the uniform and his country. Private Clarence V. Bertucci murdered nine German prisoners of war and nineteen prisoners because he “hated German’s”.
Racing against the sun we were headed to Bryce Canyon but we still had one stop to make. Butch Cassidy’s childhood home. We passed a small area called Ice Cream, which makes sense. It looked like Banana ice cream with chocolate sauce at the bottom of the bowl.
Next, stop Butch Cassidy’s childhood home. It is well preserved and what I loved best were the signs explaining he was a “nice boy”, and also his entry into the census.
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*We rolled into Bryce Canyon after dark, with another adventure awaiting us in the morning.
An Explanation about the title. Rivers meander, that is how they carve canyons. Once the canyons are deep, the environment no longer influences the flow, and the meandering is entrenched. I can not think of a better explanation of oxymoron. And yet, we are on a meandering adventure, entrenched by the fact that we made reservations in advance. Thus the title.