Looking back down Highway 191 as it climbs up into Ashley State Forest, the view is prehistoric and the past made more distant due to the smoke from western Colorado’s fires, possibly even some smoke mixed in from California.

Split Mountain strikes your eye as you enter the fertile plain of Vernal and Jensen, UT. A tortured twisted shape right at the location of the largest dinosaur find in the US, it’s almost like a historical marker of great turbulence and change, preserving the energy of those bizarre and incredible creatures who died there. An appropriate grave stone.

Along route 139 north, about 30 minutes outside of Grand Junction, as the area became more sparse, I came across an ambulance, two chairs, and this frame for a instant canopy. The ambulance engine was running, but no crew was to be seen; a cell-phone charging cable led from a small window in the rear cabin to the cab. I assumed they were in the cabin to escape the heat. Further along the route other holding areas appeared with staged equipment but no people. I think it was toward the tail end of the fire-fighting effort.