Saturday, October 22nd
The trip from Moab up to Salt Lake City is easily done in a day, but for wandering’s sake I planned a night between the two. On the map Price seemed the largest city between the two, so I booked a night there and proceeded to have the same conversation on multiple phone calls.
“Yeah, I’ll be spending Saturday night at Price.” “Oh, you’re visiting Bryce?”
Given how fun it was riding around the Moab area, I decided to take Kevin’s advice from earlier and drive 128 up. This backtracked a bit and meant I’d be spending more time on I-70, which I was a bit curious about given how tough it was last time. Still, I’d have more fuel and the spaces between gas stations would be smaller so off I went.
It was a lovely drive, at first following the river up and out of the canyons and then watching the plateaus recede into the background as the desert hills appeared.
This time I had no trouble keeping pace on I-70 nor was fuel much of a concern. I really do think the headwind had been the problem a week earlier, likely made worse by my saddle bags. I had them on for this route too, and was fine. The last exit off I-70 before heading up 191 I stopped for gas. I was only down a bit, but the sign said, “no gas next 106 miles on I-70.” I didn’t know if 191 would be much better I figured better safe than sorry, which was a good idea. There’s not much on 191 before Price.
I eventually stopped at the Horse Canyon Lookout rest area off 191 and ate lunch. Check-in for the motel was at 3pm and I was way early for that, plus I seemed to have enough fuel for a detour, so I headed down Horse Canyon Road planning to connect with 124 to 123 and back to 191. The roads are in decent shape, but as you can see above a lot of it isn’t painted, etc. It was a lovely drive, though.
Eventually I wandered into Price and it was still too early. However, I did spot an intriguing sign.
The Prehistoric Museum in Price isn’t huge; two large rooms each with a main floor and 2nd floor balcony. One side was all about Dinosaurs and the other was mostly about the local Native Americans, the Fremont Indians. It was all pretty nerdy and I really liked the part about the local natives.
I also like the ceramic figurines they made:
Lots of fossils and skeletons. One sign noted that dinosaur tracks were found in coal mines with some regularity, and they’d usually be found in the ceiling of the mine.
We’ll end Price with this memorial from outside the museum:
