Trilobites!

The end of my trip is coming fast. Today I made one last collecting attempt, but I was already pretty happy with the variety and amount of rocks that I had so far. Utah has a lot of agate and jasper, and I am bringing back some of it for the students. You can collect hundreds of pounds of most rocks on BLM land without a license, except for those places where someone else has a mineral claim. Where there are valuable or good quality samples, people will often pay the government for the mineral rights for a period of time. I went today to U-Dig Fossils, which has had a claim outside Delta for years. I found a few interesting things in my time there (segmented worm!) but Bevan Hardy there sent me home with a trilobite for each student in the third and fourth grade!

I spent yesterday and the previous day on beautiful UT 12 and 24. On Wednesday I saw bristlecones and hoodoos in Bryce but slept in Kodakchrome Basin among the bizarre rock formations. A Western Scrub Jay came over to my picnic table and stole some leftover noodles while I was just a few feet away.

Bryce Amphitheater is on my list of places to come back to hike.

Western Scrub Jay with noodle

Kodachrome Basin really was named in honor of the film.

Cryptobiotic soil was everywhere, along with the no-see-ums, who seemed to love the juniper trees as much as I do. Further down the road I stopped at Capitol Reef, which has days of trails. Instead of staying, I spent the night in Goblin Valley State Park. The ranger there directed me to a cave above the goblins from which I watched the sun set. He was from Peoria, Illinois and considered me a neighbor.

If I watched more science fiction movies, I'm sure I'd recognize a lot of the formations as stand-ins for Mars and other faraway places.