We had been so excited for our trip that we talked for months with friends who had taken trips "out West" to get tips on where to visit and how to outline our days. One bit of advice that we picked up was to try to stay on Eastern time. We were told doing so would give us an earlier start in the mornings to avoid crowds in more popular areas and also would make re-entry easier when we got home to NC.
What we didn't realize was just how easy it would be to follow that advice. Because we had been up by 4:30 on Saturday morning to catch our flight, driven from Vegas to Cedar breaks, squeezed in a sunset hike and then called the kids, we were exhausted and fell asleep Saturday night at what would be considered rather early in Mountain time.
Sunday morning we were up, showered and had time to kill before the early breakfast service began at the hotel. Thank goodness for in room coffee makers!
We filled our bellies from the plentiful buffet and got ready to check out. (I'd definitely give a high recommendation for Best Western Plus in Cedar City! By no means the Ritz, but comfortable, reasonably priced and plenty of unexpected amenities) Before we left though, we had to get a quick pic at the fountain that closely resembled "our fountain" from the time we lived in Grenoble.
We did get some curious glances from the other early morning breakfast crew over our choice of selfie spot, but even the kids immediately recognized why we had taken the time to stop.
Then we hit the road.
The open road.
The WIDE open road...
Some ten miles off the two lane highway (from which had seen five other cars in the span of 45 minutes) we we turned onto a dirt road and approached a single mountain chain stretching across the horizon. One last bend in the road revealed a gap, carved through the mountain by an ancient river.
Upon closer inspection their pictures were everywhere.
In all there are over forty panels with more than fifteen hundred individual petroglyphs.
We enjoyed trying to decipher some on our own, but also found the detailed signs quite helpful in gaining a better understanding of the stories being told.
For the entire time we examined the petryoglyphs we didn't see any people or even hear a car on the nearby road. It was our own place to explore under the wide open Utah sky.
And since we were so close, we decided to attempt to find the Parowan Dinosaur Track Site. We'd read that it was easy to miss but worth the extra few minutes as it was within two miles of the petroglyph site.
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