Hello Everyone. A belated Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all from here in Fillmore, Utah. I’ve spent this last week cutting across the central part of the state, checking out petroglyphs and dinosaur fossils in the east, cruising down the beautiful agricultural region of the Sanpete Valley and finishing up here in Utah’s first territorial capital. It’s been windy out here this week, but the temperatures have been pleasant and the rain and snow have stayed away, which was a good thing as some of these high mountain passes have taken me up above 9000’. Central Utah is definitely a less-visited part of the state, but it has a lot of cute towns, friendly people and plenty to keep me busy. I’ve been moving fast this week because there’s a powwow I want to get to in Salt Lake City this coming weekend and these are all places I wanted to hit before heading in that direction.
When I left you last week, I was out in Grand Junction, Colorado after a quick visit to Colorado National Monument. After I wrapped up my newsletter, I made a beeline back to the Beehive State and headed straight to Green River. I wanted to get there with enough time to see the John Wesley Powell River History Museum. If you don’t know of him, Powell led the first expedition to float the length of Grand Canyon. A retired U.S. Army Major, he had lost his right arm due to a gunshot through the wrist he received during the Battle of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest and most fascinating battles of the Civil War. After the war, he went on to become the curator of a small natural history museum in Illinois and went west to gather some samples for the museum. While there, he became fixated on the idea of exploring Grand Canyon and collected a rag-tag crew of mountain men and explorers to come with him. It was quite the adventure and this museum does a good job of documenting their trip and providing some great information on Powell himself. There are also displays on the geologic and human history of the Green River (which joins the Colorado River in what is now Canyonlands National Park and which Powell floated to get to the Colorado on his journey). In addition to the permanent gallery…
