Took a day trip out to Canyonlands and Dead Horse State Park.  We were told by one of the locals that we MUST drive on Schafer Trail.. We were both up for the challenge, so we did!

It is a dirt 1-1/2 lane road that scales the cliff down to the valley. We would also suggest going to the horseshoe overlook, then turn around & go back up. 

We would both highly recommend this trip if you are NOT afraid of heights. However, we would also suggest turning around at the bottom somewhere and going back up.. We stopped at a beautiful overlook to the horseshoe part of the Colorado/Green River. That's where we should have turned around.  We didn't, and ended up finally finishing the off-road bumpy road 5 hours later.  however, we did get a LOT of beautiful photos!

Ok, the details will wait until tomorrow, but we were so excited about this we had to share: we found the mother-load of Obsidian during our rock-hounding adventure today!
What Mark is presenting is Snowflake Obsidian. It is more rare to find. I’m also posting the pic of one of the obsidian beds where there are literally millions of obsidian fragments from 1/8” to 6”!
Needless to say, we couldn’t keep them all. Mark took a huge sample in to a rock dealer in Delta, Utah and traded it for some Mosasaur teeth and a couple of fossils! Great trade 😄

𝑬𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑻𝒊𝒑𝒔: See descriptions under each photo for details.
If you have fun looking for special rocks and unique attractions, Utah is definitely the place to go. Here was some of our highlights on one specific 8-hr day through about 200 miles of back roads.

​𝑵𝒐𝒕𝒆: As retirees, we have really been enjoying spending a week at a central location, then visiting all the fun things in the area during that week. This reduces our RV travel time, as well as gives us some fun roads to explore. We always pack a lunch and rarely eat out. Campgrounds usually provide us with magazines of local attractions and rock hounding sites, so we plan our day trips based on location, and head to the farthest spot first. We did this because if we got sidetracked or didn't have enough time to see all our spots, they would be closer to home for the next day.

Btw; if you ever plan on rock-hounding in Utah, be prepared to have a VERY dusty car! Lol!

Stay Details: Ebbs Canyon Rd (39.164204, -112.199923)

Mark had this place on his bucket list for years. We started talking to the young student interns there at the site and they gave Mark a piece of bone that they couldn't use for research! Talk about making his day!

So last night I surprised Mark with a stay at Medicine Rocks State Park in Montana. It is classified as a ‘Dark Sky Park’, and the Lord gave us a beautiful night to enjoy the stars.

The sky was absolutely FABULOUS! Nothing we’ve ever seen before! I took a pic with my phone but it’s very hard to see as you can imagine, so I found a photo online that is similar to what we saw. (Dark skies parks photos)

The moon was below the horizon. The closest town was over 10 miles away. There were so many stars it was hard to determine constellations. We saw the rings in Saturn in more detail than ever; the bands on Jupiter, the dark spot, along with 5 of its moons (4 of which were lined up); Over 20 satelites, and 16 shooting stars, most of them being across most of the sky with a long debris trail. Wow!

If you ever get a chance to stay a beautiful night at a dark sky park, it is WELL worth it. You can find a list of them here. Darksky.org

​Details: Medicine Rocks State Park; Parker County MT