Green River Watermelon

We've been craving watermelon from Green River, Utah, this summer, but no one around here has stocked it yet. So today I drove to Green River, about three hours each way from here. 

The most direct route to Green River is down I-15; through Spanish Fork Canyon; past Helper, Price and Wellington; one mile on I-70; to Green River. That's the way I went. Coming home, I turned near Helper to take Hwy 191 to Duchesne. This is along the way. 

I hadn't planned to do sight seeing and thus didn't take a camera, tripod or other camera gear. When I decided to take a picture of myself in the BMW, I had to make a tripod for my iPhone out of aspen. I was actually surprised that it worked quite well. 

This is someone's log home next to the highway a ways before Duchesne. 

Here's my car from the log house. 

And here's what's across the highway from the log house. You know you're near Duchesne when oil rigs are pumping away every couple of blocks. I believe these are pumping natural gas. 

Here's what you can see every few blocks along the highway. If you take the dirt road from Nine Mile Canyon to Duchesne, you'll also see a lot of these along that road. 

The summit before dropping into Duchesne. 

Duchesne is in the distance there somewhere, before the mountains in the background. 

I'm not really very familiar with Duchesne. I know Highway 40 from Vernal, through Duchesne to Heber is paved, but I'm guessing not many other roads in Duchesne are, if this is a city bus. 

So, instead of turning right at Heber and taking Highway 40 and I-80 home through Parely's Canyon, I turned left and drove past Deer Creek Reservoir and down the top part of Provo Canyon. I then turned at the road to Sundance and drove over the Alpine Loop. This guy was a few miles past Aspen Grove. 

He crossed the road in front of me. I had to wait a few minutes for him to get his rear end off the road so I could go around. 

When I did get around, I was almost close enough to touch him. Remember that I'm in a car with no roof. 

Here's the watermelon (with seeds) and three cantaloupes I bought. The cantaloupe is delicious, as expected. We haven't cut into the watermelon yet, because we still have some mediocre watermelon from the store in our fridge. However, the lady at Vertere's melon stand in Green River assured me the watermelon is vine ripened and ready to eat. And the black goo coming from the end is sugar seeping out, which is a good sign. 

A Monte Cristo Day

Today we decided to drive Highway 39 over the Monte Cristo mountains between Hunstville and Woodfruff.

Here we are near the summit in the Monte Cristo Range. 

A puffy plant. Wildflowers were still in bloom, but this is a reminder that fall isn't too far away. 

Chieko tried to blow the plant like a dandelion, but these seeds hung onto their stem.  

Near the summit, we got stuck in a repaving project. 

Here's the finished road. 

Unfortunately, they used a chip-seal process, which is basically loose gravel and crushed rock with a layer of oil sprayed over it. This is a cheap way to redo the road, but it makes a terrible surface for bicyclists, and this is or was a popular bike route. 

Here's Bear Lake from above some farms in Lakepoint. The lake was a beautiful turquoise today. 

We stopped in Garden City for a famous Bear Lake fresh raspberry milkshake. That's what Chieko has in her hand. 

Chieko had just said, "We haven't seen any animals today," when this young deer popped out of the trees in the Monte Cristo campground. 

What is wrong with this picture? Considering who it is, it isn't unusual. 

The wildflowers are still pretty.

Near the bottom of the canyon, we saw a family of wild turkeys, two adults and four young ones. This picture shows the two adults. 

These are two of the babies.