From Utah to Colorado....

Utah is such a diverse state and many movies have scenes filmed here. After having seen a bit of the state this year and last year, I'm not surprised.
Thelma and Louise

Footloose

Forrest Gump

How The West Was Won

Romancing the Stone

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

127 Hours

Back to the Future 111

and many, many more....thought that might be of interest to some of you!
We were up early on the Monday morning as we had an 8 hr drive ahead of us to get to Silverthorne, in Colorado where we would be spending a week.  We asked Simon (our GPS) which way was the quickest and I was a little disappointed he didn't take us to the town of Green River, where we could have visited Goblin Valley State Park.  Turns out we probably drove a much better way as we avoided the busy, busy I70 and Spring Break traffic and instead had a really scenic drive, good roads and hardly any traffic.
We drove through gorges with scatterings of snow, then through high country where there was snow everywhere....

then the landscape changed ....

and we made our one and only stop at the National Dinosaur Monument.  I'm not a fan of dinosaurs (now that the kids are grown up my dinosaur knowledge has certainly dwindled!!) but the country looked pretty spectacular...and......they actually had a distance sign as to how far it was off the main road...unheard of!!!

So we decided to have a look and were really pleased we did.

We were escorted up a mountain by a Ranger to a quarry, where 1500 fossils are embedded in the cliff face.  This cliff face is engulfed by a building,

 and once you are inside you can see and touch (some) dinosaur bones.  It was pretty impressive....

 We drove further into the National Park and came across Split Mountain Canyon and the Green River.....stunning!

Prairie dogs

Once we were back on the main road we continued north (well I think we were heading north..I actually have no sense of direction when in the US, so it could have been east!!)

...it was still beautiful country...

before reaching the Utah/Colorado border...

Once in Colorado, the snow began building up again.....such a treat to see....we drove through Steamboat Springs...one place Stuart didn't get to snowboard and it looked pretty good...

One thing I love seeing where there is snow, are the rivers and creeks...they usually run alongside the road...and this drive didn't disappoint.

and again when you are driving on these roads...all around you there are mountains and snow and stunning views from every direction...including the rear-view mirror!!

 After nearly 10 hours on the road, we finally got to Silverthorne and found our condo....(just kidding)

...but we really did find our accommodation (which Stuart had found on a house exchange website, so it is free for the week) and after nearly 45 minutes in the cold we eventually found someone who helped us unlock the door (it was like trying to unlock something on Mission Impossible) and we knew we were in for a treat for the next week!  We were back in familiar country....

Check out the link up the top right of this blog ("Track My Tour).  Click on it and it will show you a map of where we have been, with some photos.  If you click on the words on the left hand side, each location comes up....enjoy!