RockyMTblue2
Don't Look Up!
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 22,399
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- 99,205
Well, I just saw this from you bags. It was an extraordinary 5 days, some of which I shared in my heads up about the race organizers. The "resort" in which we rented an owner's sleeps 8 cabin was a nightmare - the race's local sponsor. The west is still the wild west when it comes to RE development and this hideous place is a prime example. The lodging was fine-ish, but the infrastructure of the resort was not. The roads were at best what we out here call "pioneered", a euphemism for a wagon trail. Every journey in and out was a 2-3 mph 4 wheel journey with a lump in everyone's throat.
Had a wonderful talk with a rock shop owner about the myriad fossils that litter the Zion area rock formations. The ranch development in which we live is also a fossil rich landscape. The head of Montana State's geology department came out here a few years ago and gave us a walking tour lecture, explaining that what makes this place so unique is that it is the equivalent of the Grand Canyon lying on it's side as you move south to north on the ranch, the oldest rock of geological times being in the south and the youngest formations being in the north. 900 feet of elevation change ... hence the Canyon lying on its side analogy. The Geology dept. use to have permission to bring classes up here, but the students ruined that with their wild and landscape destructive shenanigans.
A long digression there. I and a daughter were picking his brain about the formations to look for, etc. and he was very knowledgeable and willing to share. He also had a beautiful "dirty" jade necklace reasonably priced which solved my annual wife's birthday present dilemna just in the nick of time.