I find that when I travel, I experience things where what I see doesn’t match my anticipated views.. Today was one of those. We had planned to see several things. I had underestimated the mileage involved (things look so close on a paper map). Don’t get me wrong. Central Utah is beautiful. This is probably my second favorite area to move to. We traveled almost 500 miles to get someplace we’ve been – Monticello, Utah.

Let’s start at the beginning of today. We skipped the normal hotel breakfast and thought we’d find something just a little bit down the road. That didn’t exactly work. We ended up finding El Bambi in Beaver, Utah. The name almost scared me away. I didn’t want to eat Bambi for breakfast. Turns out it was a retro diner / truck stop. Success.

We launched the truck in the direction of Goblin State Park. Trust me that it is worth visiting even though the entry fee is $20. The pictures are on my other camera (which I’m having some issues with).

The drive across central Utah was quite picturesque.

I had heard of Bears Ears National Monument so that was our next target. There are no pictures. I understand that this is a historically important area but there were no signs, ranger stations, information kiosks or anything else to designate that this location is supported by your tax dollars. The only thing of note that we saw was “Newspaper Rock” which is full of ancient petroglyphs, the meaning of which has been lost to time. I’m sure it hasn’t changed since the last time we were here.

On to Monticello and the Atomic Blue Hotel. This was a shot in the dark. It had good reviews but I was a little apprehensive until we got the keys (not key cards) to our room. It is a nice, clean retro style hotel. If you’re in the area, it is worth looking into.

The last time we were in Monticello the citizens here were celebrating the founding of the state. There were people everywhere. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit then. Now it is really quiet. There aren’t too many restaurant choices so we ordered pizza. We didn’t accomplish half of what I had planned for the day. I’m not giving up.