Visit to a newer ghost town…

Continuing my trip up the Colorado River from last time…I drifted away from the river as I was following the road, ‘cus I had to. Here’s a map of the divergence. Follow it north a bit and you’ll see the ghost town of Cisco. My destination. And this article also contains Dinosaurs.

And once I got to the ‘T’ in the road, I turned east towards Cisco, only a few miles on, on Hwy 128, designated a Scenic Byway. First thing you pass as you reach the town is this crumbling ranch house. This is a crumbling half ghost town, half tourist attraction and I’ll just let the following pictures speak for themselves…

How do you like that Snake Van? Pretty cool. And this City Center Motor Hotel was interesting as well. If it were open, I’d consider staying there so I could wander the town for a while. Looks a lot like the town was already falling to ruin when an artist colony decided to move in. Well, here, some history and a link to an article, but if you don’t wanna click just now ‘cuz of a sore finger or a splint on it or something…here’s an excerpt….

“The tiny settlement of Cisco in eastern Utah was established in the 1880s as a service post along the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (now Union Pacific), and flourished for several decades, attaining a maximum population of over 200, until a decline began, firstly after the replacement of steam trains by diesel engines in the 1950s, and then when the town was bypassed by Interstate 70 in the 1970s. ”

And here’s one of the more modern dwellings. A converted bus. Looks nice. Needs some paint. And next to that is the post office. Probably the Post Master lived in this bus.

The town has been featured in movies like Thelma & Louise. The interstate is visible from the town and visa versa so lots of people have stopped here and some have vandalized the town so I suspect much of the damage is from them, not just weathering and lack of maintenance.

When I’d planned this visit, I am pretty sure that Google showed Buzzards Belly General Store was open, so that was part of my plan, to stop here and have an ice cream. But noooooooo, even though the sign on the wall said ‘Open’, the gate was locked and another sign said ‘Closed’. Now I find via Google search that it opens on March 1st. Maybe. Their web site (link below) doesn’t say. Can’t tell for sure ever with these remote places, but it’s the adventure and the trip, not the destination (bull).  This place had a fence all around the store with a locked gate at the parking lot entrance. Same with the front gate, also locked.

Buzzards Belly link…

That giant ‘Now Open’ sign didn’t help things one bit. Anyway, I was disappointed that I didn’t get an ice cream cone but no biggie, I’ll get one back in Moab.

So after slowly circumnavigating Cisco and getting a few pictures, it was back to the ‘T’ on 128, and by the time I got there a couple minutes after leaving Cisco, I decided to retrace my route and head back down the Colorado.

And somehow, I neglected to take any pictures. I remember that I did, but can’t find a single one now and I’m always so careful to file them in the right folders with date and description and everything. But today, I can’t find anything about the trip back.

What I took pics of were better pictures of the horse farms and buildings as the angle was better on the trip back. One of them is the Red Cliffs Lodge, and the other is the Sorrel River Ranch. And I thought I took pictures of the RV parks I stopped at and roamed around in. I know I stopped and used the pit toilet at one, pretty sure I took photos of the RV spaces along with the river that the park was right next to. But now can’t find a single one of those pictures. Doh!

The weather was perfect for camping and all the campgrounds were empty too. BUT, they are all ‘dry camping’ and have outrageous rates with no off season rate. The Goose Island park is dry only and a $125/night rate for all year! So a parking spot for $125/night! Wow.

However, if you get further up the river, away from Moab about 10 miles, the price drops to $20/night for dry camps…tents only. Then at Hal Canyon, there are RV sites. Pretty nice sites too, but no hookups. Dry. Big Bend and Upper Big bend are also nice. I toured them, but don’t recall hookups.

Well, anyway, I toured many of the campgrounds, took a bunch of pictures that I lost somehow, and ended up back in downtown Moab looking for an ice cream shop. And I found a place right on the main drag. Place was packed but I got my ice cream and enjoyed it on their patio.

After that, it was back home to plan the next days excursion to the Dinosaur Museum just north of town and north of Arches NP entrance. I’d passed it the day I’d arrived and decided it might be worth a visit.

So, here we  go the next day, to the Moab Giants Museum…as you can see, it’s quite the deal. Really built up. Someone(s) poured lots of money into this place. Must really like dinosaurs.

Plug your computer or Android tablet with HDMI output into your giant TV’s HDMI input and switch ‘source’ to that input. Then click and hold the top of this page, and pull it over to your TV. Then call your children, grandchildren, or both over to check out these Dinosaur pictures.

Cost me $26 to get in but I forgot to ask for the military discount until I’d walked several paces onto the grounds. Dammit.

First I stopped at a nearby building, the above picture was from the portico, and it was a time based entrance time, I was early so they hadn’t opened yet. Turned out I was the only tourist so I had the guide to myself. He explained every undersea exhibit as we got to them. The 3D glasses gave some perspective. The many exhibits were all of undersea creatures that lived in this area so long ago that it was ocean around here then. The exhibits were behind plastic and there wasn’t any water of course, but the 3D glasses kind of made it interesting. Some of the creatures were pretty weird. I didn’t take any pictures…’cuz of the 3D thing.

The last exhibit was kinda lame for an adult. There was a giant shark, one of those 25 footers, and he would ram the glass with his nose and the floor would jump. Several times. Yawn. Anyway, back outside ready to walk the path around the grounds.

Anyway, this is a multi-building and multi-exhibit style museum featuring a 1.25 mile path around the grounds that display lifelike and life sized models of dinosaurs that used to live in this area of Utah. You can see in the pictures above and below how well done the models are. These don’t show feathers but many did.  Each exhibit has a descriptive sign and surprisingly, the local conditions were very much like they are today in this region of the planet. Each animal species was described and their approximate survival from evolving to extinction was noted. I decided not to take pictures of each and every sign as to not clutter this article too much since there would be lots of pictures. Not all of them survived until 65 million years ago, many were long gone before that mass extinction event.

I’ve seen display models of beasties all my life and comparatively, these are pretty good. They keep them in tip/top condition…which can’t be easy with the brutal summers they get here, not to mention the freezing weather they get most of the winter. See this guy? Note the hint of feathers? Scientists are still debating which dinos had them so this is likely a guess. At least until a fossil with the imprint of feathers shows up for this species.

This next shot is of a Trainicus Dinosaurious following it’s tracks. Very rare to see a live one.

I thought about taking pictures of each and every descriptive board but decided against it. When you visit Moab, you can come here and see for yourself. They are large, lots of reading, but chock full of interesting info. And the dinos are really cool too.

Ask yourself, seriously, what would it be like walking this ground and coming upon one of these live creatures? Most of them would likely run from you when you make threatening noises, but not all.

An Allosaurus. I wonder how many of the beasties above would see you as prey, as a threat, as both or as neither? Who would want to find out? I wonder what they tasted like?

Anyway, continuing on the path…holey crap these guys look dangerous…

The freak’in claws on some of the beasties are wild. Tall and small. They run the gambit.

Lots of sharp nasty teeth. Right around this point in the trip there were some really cool giant meatosaurs and I got over the shoulder pictures of myself with them in the background using my phone. Just recently, the memory stick in my phone died so I lost them. Dammit. I’m bummed about that as this is the first phone memory stick that’s ever died on me. Had many pictures on it, all gone. Well, on with the tour. We’re about at the halfway mark on the trail now.

Such an interesting park. Glad I came. Such interesting creatures!

Weather was perfect for a walking tour, but you can tell from the backgrounds and the plants that you wouldn’t want to tour this in the summer unless you came really early…

And here we finally get to the really big guys. You would be just the right size to be a snack to one of them. I stood underneath and took a shot to show the size.

Pretty cool, huh?

There is an indoor museum too, so after that walk, I went into the building to scout that out.

And it’s got the bones if you want to see those too…

There was a stairway inside the building that took me up to the roof to get a view of the entire grounds, and this is that view.

And then back down to finish the tour of the museum.

And then I went to a 3D viewing theater but ya know, I can’t remember what I saw there so I won’t mention it. After that, I trudged over to the cafe and had a nice coffee.

And then, back home. Very nice tour, and I saw the signs to Dead Horse Point and Canyon NP as I exited this museum parking lot so I’ll be back this way to visit those places soon. As I mentioned, I had paid for 8 days here in Moab at the RV park, and still had a few days left.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!

Jim…