Utah - Days 2 - 5 - in Vernal

Vernal/Dinosaurland KOA, Vernal
Saturday, 2 through Tuesday, 5 October 2021

I spent a good part of Monday the 4th looking at dinosaur bones, and I'll do a separate post about that.

On the other days, I finished all the Wyoming posts except the state museum on the 25th, which I'll have to finish later.  I spent one whole day trying to make plans for my month in Utah, and also figure out the first part of my month in New Mexico, so I could fit in a visit with my friends Paula and Bruce who are making their own travel plans. 

I ran into a roadblock while trying to make reservations because my credit card got refused at 2 different campgrounds.  It was a Sunday, so I couldn't get anything finished until my credit union opened on Monday.  It was my own fault for not paying enough attention to the statements David had been faithfully forwarding to me, but I finally got it straightened out.

I also made an appointment at a medical clinic in Moab to get another prescription for blood pressure medicine.  

I tried to reserve a spot at the Moab KOA but ran into a problem.  Their website lists 2 phone numbers, but both have the same voicemail message: send us an email - that's the only way we'll answer your questions.  (That's not what they said but it's the effect.)  So I got suspicious and checked the online comments and found the same kinds of complaints I'd read for that ghastly place in North Dakota where the owner was so incredibly rude and bordered on bait-and-switch.  Same kind of thing here - many folks said it was a nice place, but many others said the owner was "RUDE" and the amenities didn't remotely live up to the billing.  

I'm a slow learner, but it was an ugly lesson and I didn't want to make that mistake twice.  Instead I found a state campground about an hour away.  My appointment isn't until 9:30 AM which I should be able to make easily, even on mountain roads.

I already had reservations first at Brigham City and then at the Salt Lake City KOA for after I leave Vernal.  On Sunday I added to those by finding a state campground just outside Salt Lake City and reserved 2 nights there, so that gets me past the 2nd weekend (always hard to find a decent spot on weekends).

I extended my reservation here for 2 more nights, partly so I could have time to go to the Dinosaur National Monument (see next post), and partly so I could get more done.

The campground here in Vernal really emptied out in the daytime, so we had an easy time walking around the area.  One day we saw a flock of 11 turkeys, who seemed to pay no attention to us at all.  Actually, it looked like there were 2 adults, who kept an eye on us but didn't seem too bothered as I tried to keep our distance, and the rest acted very young - chasing bugs is what it looked like they were doing.  I haven't seen turkeys do this, which is why I thought they might be young.  Usually turkeys look pretty dignified, but these sure didn't.

And one afternoon we saw a deer.  I stopped dead because I didn't want to upset it and I was afraid Dext might want to chase it.  The deer stopped dead too, then turned around and jumped a fence and loped off into the underbrush.

Twice I had a weird thing happen with my eyes.  The first time it was still dark and we were out for a walk when, suddenly, it felt like my left eye had become the dominant eye and tried to cross over my right eye (the vision, of course, not the actual eye).  I wasn't exactly dizzy but felt a little disoriented, and it lasted several minutes.  It happened again on another day during the daytime, not quite such a strong feeling and lasting a shorter time, but still very disorienting.  As if I wasn't quite sure where the ground was my feet were supposed to walk on.  Probably just a result of the lack of sleep that's been bothering me.

Speaking of which, the first night here I didn't get much sleep at all.  Mostly it was because there was too much light coming in the windows, because the only window covering that has light-blocking ability is for the front windshield.  Also it was too hot without the fan and too cold with it, so I could never really get comfortable.

The second night, I covered up 3 of the windows with towels pinned up with clothespins and that made a huge difference.  If I had extra time and money, I'd get light-blocking curtains made like the one in front - it's just a lined curtain that I stick on with Velcro every night, and it works really well.  Don't know whose bright idea it was not to put those in all the windows.

All in all, it was a peaceful, fairly productive time.