Natural Bridges, Edge Of Cedars State Park And A Dinosaur Museum

Our first stop was a visit to Natural Bridges National Monument. The drive out there on route 95 was pretty and around every corner there were spectacular views. A real treat we were not expecting was a run in (pun intended) with Team RWB.  We did a blog posting on the running team here.

Once we got to Natural Bridges we drove the scenic loop and stopped at many of the overlooks.

There are many hiking trails off of these overlooks where you can take to get up close and personal with the natural bridges. You can even hike down to one bridge and travel the loop trail to all three bridges. Keep in mind that it is a 8.6 mile round trip hike which, based on the terrain, will take you all day.

Now don’t get Natural Bridges confused with Arches. While they look similar they are different based on how they were formed. Air and wind currents that eventually punch a hole in a rock; creating an Arch, form arches. A Natural Bridge is formed by a waterway below it that carves out an opening. That waterway may or may not still be present but it is the main factor for creating the Natural Bridge. More info on these two differences can be found here.

We did end up hiking down to the last natural bridge. It was pretty amazing to see this bridge in all its glory. Walking under it, touching it and sitting underneath it just looking up and seeing the big puffy clouds. It was a nice stop to just breathe. Oh and fly, seeing that we were alone.

Once we were back on route 95, heading back to the motor home from a long day of exploring, we ran into a little bit of stopped traffic.

Route 95 is not a terribly busy road, to say the least. However, cars were stopped ahead and everyone was out of their vehicles. There’s no way around so we came to a stop and asked what was going on.

Apparently after we had passed through this area going into Natural Bridges, there was a rockslide and it was now blocking the road. Talk about timing. The work crews were there and the rock was so big they had to blast it apart to clear the road.

We had just missed the blasting when we arrived but it was still going to be a little while before we could get moving again. So we did what everyone else was doing. We got out and enjoyed the view. There could be worse places to be stuck. Luckily we were only held up for about 20 minutes before we were able to start heading down the road again.

The next day we headed to the Edge of Cedars State Park and Museum, located right there in Blanding.

The Anasazi Indians (early Pueblo people) made this large corner of Utah and some of Colorado there home. The museum houses the largest collection of pottery on display. It was pretty impressive.

This is also the place that you can go into and explore a Kiva. That was pretty interesting as most places you can only look but not touch. This was a 1000-year-old Kiva that really gave you a sense of how the ancient Anasazi people lived.

The grounds around the museum housed several large art pieces as well. This one that David is standing in had cut outs of animals and such. So when the sun shone down on into the sphere it made various shadows that told a story.

The museum and park were worth the admission fee and if you ever find yourself in this small little town, this would be worth a stop.

Speaking of which, one stop that was just ok and not spectacular was the Dinosaur Museum, also right in town.

If you are a dinosaur movie buff, then this is the place for you. I think the curator of this museum is a total movie buff and it seems made these displays of the dinosaurs around all this movie memorabilia and posters. When you are walking around the walls are filled with old movie posters. Not the type of thing we expected to see in a museum.

What we also thought we were seeing, and were expecting, were actual dinosaur fossils and bones, were in fact castings. So that was disappointing. There were a few actual fossils scattered about but the majority were castings.

It was still on ok stop but nothing I would go out of my way for.

As far as Blanding itself, we would have no reason to go back. As I would assume most people just use it as a stopping point between several attractions in the area. We stayed at the Blue Mountain RV Park, which was an easy in and out stop. However, like most places that we visit, their Internet was terrible and unusable. Verizon was ok but it was better when it was in the booster. The view though was amazing. Our spot was sitting up on a hill and we were overlooking the mountains. At least they thought about facing the sites towards the view and not the road.