Dinosaurs and a Change in Plans
Hello my friends! We’re so excited about this video/blog post! Before parting ways with our dear friends for the summer we wanted to go on one last trip together so we got to work finding the perfect spot for our adventure. Once we had zeroed in on an area, we left the desert with our friends Karissa & Linhbergh and Peter & Shruthi!
We moved to the outskirts of the Southwestern desert that we’d been calling home for the last six months and set our sights on something new.
This video and blog post is brought to you by our dear friends over at OnX Offroad. It is our favorite app for saving topo maps offline, finding trails and off the beaten path areas to explore. We use and love OnX Offroad and are proud to have them as a long standing sponsor of our travels! Sign up using the button below for 20% off your subscription!
Just outside of Cleveland, Utah the crew found a quiet place to camp in the unique landscape which was somewhere between being a desert, badlands with some interesting rock formations tossed in there. The change of scenery was a nice change from the windy desert. The evening was filled with celebratory pie for Linhbergh’s birthday, exploring the rocks, and watching Jurassic Park on our projector! All in preparation for…
Going to the Cleveland - Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry! We wanted to kick the trip off with something none of us had ever done and as an added bonus, all of us are REALLY nerdy for dinosaurs because we’re products of the 80’s. Our love for dinosaurs is practically bred into us!
But this is the great thing about travel! It allows you to keep your childhood love for things like the extinct mega-fauna of the late Jurassic Period alive! I will not rehash all of the incredible things that we learned at the dino quarry here because they’re in the video and Owen made some INCREDIBLE graphics to help convey some of those interesting facts in the video. However I will list some things that we found interesting that we couldn’t fit into the video.
The researchers digging on site often have to fund their own digs because there is not much money that goes into researching dinosaur digs anymore.
The finds from this quarry are in museums all over the world.
Utah is considered dinosaur country and even has a scenic byway called the Dinosaur Diamond that connects fossil beds, tracks and quarries across the desert.
The quarry yielded two never before know to science predators called Marshosaurus and Stokesosaurus
The quarry was incredible, but the real treat was being able to chat with the researchers that were actively working in the quarry! We hung out for nearly an hour, which brought about some feelings I havn’t felt in a while. I, as well as my parents, always thought I would grow up to be a paleontologist. I walked everywhere staring at the ground. As a kid I always came home with bones, rocks, and fossils. Standing there, looking at the sweaty scientist chipping away at the ground, I felt envious of them. Life takes us down unexpected paths that has lead me to doing… well whatever it is that I’m doing.
Before leaving, I asked how someone like me can get involved. They told me that they’re always needing volunteers to help them document, clean and organize finds. Getting involved is as simple as reaching out to a site and volunteering. Something tells me that one day, I will find a way to sit still long enough so I can volunteer. I’ve always wanted to use my art to help document scientific processes in the field and working at a site like this would fulfill a whole lot of dreams!
Sorry for that brief detour, back to the story…
After we got our fill at the dino quarry we loaded up, got some groceries and headed into the mountains. It was wild how quickly the desert faded into an alpine mountain range in Central Utah. We all kept joking that this is a corner of Utah none of us had any idea existed. Though we don’t get into it much, we came here to access Skyline Drive, which is a Scenic Backway is one of the highest roads of Utah! The high-altitude mountain road follows the spine of the Wasatch Plateau and runs 60 miles, most of which is above 10,000 feet.
As we neared the start of the road we started to become suspicious that we wouldn’t be able to drive it due to lingering snow fields. Sure enough, we came across some ATVs, dripping wet and caked in mud. We stopped to chat them up only to find that they’d been stuck just a few miles down skyline for a few hours and broke the winch on each of the rigs. Needless to say our band of misfits didn’t stand a chance. So we turned to OnX to helps us find camp for the night to regroup.
Only having to backtrack a few miles we found an incredible camp spot. We sat back to enjoy the fresh mountain air and schemed about a big dinner with Linhbergh.
Since we had so much time on our hands we figured we’d make a thing of it it! Vietnamese Rice porridge with a vibrant herbed and chicken salad was what was on the menu. After making fancy Old Fashioneds, Linh and I got to work on dinner.
Obviously, Linhbergh is the brain behind the cooking operation, but it was fun to work along aside him in his (on the road) kitchen.
Once the cameras were set up and cooking had begun, the rest of the group formed a semi-circle around us to watch as we cooked. It was funny because it felt like Linh and I had our own looking cooking show and we were doing it before a live, and vocal audience!
Please note that Stella, the blonde dog, is in nearly every image. Anytime cooking is happening she sits patiently to wait to see if any food gets dropped or slipped in her direction.
When dinner was about 30 mins out from being ready, our camp had some visitors that ended up changing the direction of the rest of our night. Three kids, who were visibly shaken, walked up and told us they needed help. Their camper had rolled off the road a few miles back. They were lost, afraid, and didn’t have cell service. We all turned to each other and with few words decided we’d pack up our rig, that has the heaviest capacity winch, so Owen and Peter could follow them to the crash. If further help was needed Owen and Peter would send a Garmin message to alert us. If that was the case, Linh and I would transfer dinner to Peter & Shruthi’s van and go to the crash with the Troopy that also has a substantial winch.
In a matter of minutes, Owen and Peter drove out of sight. We didn’t hear anything for over an hour. When the sun went down we retreated to Peter & Shruthi’s van for warmth. Eventually we decided that Linh should take the troopy to see if he could provide any additional help. Just as he went outside to prep the truck he could hear Roxanne coming up the road in the distance.
Over dinner, they recounted what happened. I go into more detail in the video, but the moral of the story is that it’s important to have maps saved offline when traveling into areas that you are not familiar with and that won’t have cellphone service. We were just happy that we could be in the right place, at the right time, and have what we needed to help a family in need. Life is interesting that way.
Nearly every time something doesn’t go according to plan for us, it’s been made clear that things happen they way they do for a reason.
Dinner was a huge hit! Everything was delicious and it ended up being the perfect, comforting meal for a cold night. We settled into a later than expected fire and watched the stars light up the dark night. If you are interested in the recipe, Linh was kind enough to write it up in a blog post for us! Follow the link below to try it out for yourself!
The next day we had a quiet and slow morning around camp. After examining the map, we found an alternate road that would traverse a similar area as Sky Line drive. We drove to the crash to see what Owen and Peter had the night before. Then we slowly traversed dirt roads until we once more, hit pavement. Though this was not what we came here for, it was an incredible trip and a last hoorah with our friends until we reconvene with each other in Patagonia this fall for a group trip we’re hosting! (Of which we still have spaces on)
Thank you so much to Karissa, Linhbergh, Peter, and Shruthi for being willing to follow us on this wild goose chase! Thank you to our friends over at OnX for working with us so we can make fun videos like this. It was a blast to adventure and a joy to create this fun video out of it! We hope that you all enjoyed and we will see you down the road!
Love, MAK
