April 18, Green River, Utah

Don says it’s important to include the name of the state we’re in, ‘cause there’s another Green River in Wyoming, which we visited last year. Don’t want to confuse anyone. This being Sunday, we got off to kind of a late start in the morning, what with special Sunday TV shows and all. That’s OK, I’m used to waiting. Don finally got his act together and got me into the truck, and we took off for Green River State Park, which is right on the river. When we got to the entrance, we found out that it would cost $5.00 to go for a walk. I would have paid it, but I didn’t have my wallet with me; Don felt otherwise, and we turned around and headed back to town. We quickly found the Town Park, which was very large and had nice grass; I was pleased with it. I took off running right away, found a nice shady spot to do a roll in, and did a good, long roll. When I was done, Don called me over to show me one of the principal features of the park; a huge missile! Don told me that it was an Athena missile, and that these missiles were test fired at a local facility back in the 1960’s. Wow, talk about ancient history! We had a very nice walk, and I did a lot more running and rolling.

When we got back to the rig, it was time for my lunch (and theirs, too), so we got that out of the way. Back into the truck, and we went for a tour of Green River. Took about fifteen minutes; we all agreed that this was not a thriving town, and had certainly seen better days. On the west side of the river were maybe a dozen motels, some of which were closed down, all of them doing little or no business. There were a half dozen or so newer motels on the east side of the river, with a few cars in each of their parking lots. The busiest place in town was a truck stop.

Our next stop was the John Wesley Powell Expedition Museum, which is right on the river bank, on the east side. Since I couldn’t go in due to species discrimination, Geri took me to the shaded porch of the museum and secured my leash to a bench, so that I could stay cool. They were in the museum for quite a while, so I took a good nap. When they finally completed their tour of the place, they got me back into the truck and gave me some nice, cold water, which tasted good. They told me that this museum was very much worth stopping for, and that they saw a very well produced movie about Powell’s expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers, mapping territory that no American had ever seen before. They said the exhibits were very well done, and the people in the gift shop had been very helpful in assisting Don in figuring out what road he had taken in his mad dash across Utah in 1964.

We found a street in town called Long Street, and went on a mission to find out how long it really was. Wow, it was long! We finally stopped at a private road quite a ways up the river, getting into some geologically interesting territory. Along the way, we formulated the concept that the local standard for establishing family wealth and status was the amount of junk accumulated in the front and side yards of the house/mobile home/trailer involved. Some of the accumulations could have been museum quality. Don saw one home with a collection of 1948 Buicks in the front yard, all of them good junk quality, but lined up like at a car show. Geri wanted to call “The Pickers”, from a TV show she watches, guys who buy junk and sell antiques.

We stopped at what appeared to be the only grocery store in town, but found it to be mostly a sandwich shop. Don wanted to get a bottle of wine to go with the pasta he was going to cook tonight, but was told that he could only get wine at the liquor store down the road, but he couldn’t buy it today, ‘cause it was Sunday. Oh. So, we went back to the rig, Don cooked his pasta with meat sauce, homemade meatballs and Italian sausage, and we all managed without the wine. It was great! After dinner, Geri took me out for a walk, and we went over to a fence where there were some cows on the other side. Cows don’t really bother me, but they are kind of big. These cows apparently wanted to make friends, and came over to see us. We talked to them, and they listened attentively, while munching grass. Geri thought that their grass was a little short, so she picked some from our side and offered it to them. You would have thought she pointed a gun at them! They immediately panicked and went running off to safety. What Cow Brains!

Tomorrow, we’re off for our ultimate objective, Colorado. Don says we’re going to Grand Junction, where the scenery is great. Hope we get a good RV Park. I’ll let you know!