Hunting for petroglyphs

I had messed up the day of our return home, thinking it was Sunday instead of Monday. So we suddenly had one more day to enjoy Utah. I found that right on the way to Salt Lake from Moab, there is a canyon with endless numbers of petroglyphs from the Fremont and pictographs from the Utes. The oldest are from around 1000 A.D. We got a little brochure in the gas station at the junction and headed into Nine Mile Canyon, which is actually about 50 miles long. I was a little creeped out because about five miles before the turnoff, up on a hill on the side of the road was a sign that looked like a painted sheet that said “White men kill.” Because we were below the sign, I couldn’t see if there was a direct object to that lovely sentence, nor could we decide whether it was a statement of fact or an exhortation, but in any event it was creepy.

The road through the canyon was all dirt till a few years ago when mining companies volunteered to pave it as part of their mining concession. There are about 25 miles of rock faces and if you look closely, you will see tons and tons of drawings. It was really fun, kind of like where’s Waldo — lots of walking up and down hills looking at rock faces, trying to identify animals. Definitely saw some elk, some bison, bighorn sheep, something that looked like a turkey. We met a guy in an orange truck at the first site, who really knew all about these sites, and so we just got in the habit of stopping along the road wherever we saw his truck. He didn’t seem to mind.

Joe has suggested a Greek restaurant in town, the number 3 rated restaurant in Price, Utah. But a Subway is number five, so I don’t think we should get our hopes up!Read more