After making dinner for the evening's meal, I rode Cub Creek Road 16.58 miles round trip which included a ride down to the Green River Campground. I engaged Strava to give me the stats on my ride. Starting at 4,790 feet, the is ride summarized as follows:

I've been at a loss for words not a few times while we've been full time travelers by what's happening in the U.S. politically, specifically, policies happening because of the election and re-election of Donald Trump.

If our life on the road appears to be generally blissful and joyful, generally it is just what it appears.  We are not on vacation, but we are in a position to do vacation-like things as often as we want. There's mundane day-to-day living stuff too, but we are happy with the choice we made to travel without a home base.

So, with all the chaos being created by the current administration and their toady minions in Congress and the Supreme Court, we also feel a grave obligation to speak out, to let our voices be heard now.

We don't stream cable news shows. Ever. We, until recently, read two newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Now, only the Times. We have a subscription to The Atlantic.

We exchange ideas about the state of the U.S. and world daily with each other. What's happening today in our country reminds me of the growing up in the 60's when many of the policies being attacked now were settled, sometimes not so peacefully because of the intransigence of our government to the will of its citizens. 

I read various Substack contributors, including Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance, Slow Boring, Judd At Popular Information, Letters From An American, The Weekly Dish, The View From Rural America, Art Cullen's Notebook, and Chris Geidner at Law Dork, to name a few.  I also continue to follow Kyle Whitmire and John Archibald in Alabama.

And Melanie started following the 50501 Movement early on and, because of that, we've gotten out to be among like-minded citizens who also don't believe that the wholesale dismantling of government is normal, who don't want oligarchy, who don't want theocracy, who value our civil rights, the rule of law, and who are angry with politicians who are unresponsive.

Our own representative in Florida won't show up in person for Town Halls, instead choosing to communicate via telephone Town Halls.  Like many of President Trump's toadies, he's just another coward.

We've now attended four 50501 protests: two in Tucson, Arizona, one in Everett, Washington and the most recent one in Salt Lake City, Utah.  

Photos below are both mine and Melanie's from the Salt Lake City protest of April 19, 2025.

We've been in residence at DINO for just over a week and I'd not gotten Melanie's bike out storage on the back of the van. She was too busy being a Ranger-in-training.

Yesterday, she was off work and in the afternoon I retrieved her bike and we took our first ride in the Monument together. 

We rode as far as an overlook where the Green River Campground can be seen a few hundred feet down on the Green River, then we explored the Split Mountain Campground group camp area where a boat ramp is located.

Beautiful day and really nice first ride in our National Monument for Melanie.

After dinner, Melanie shared with me a video, River Reflections, I think you may enjoy. She tells me it's one of the reasons she choose to become a Seasonal Ranger here. 

Aside from the usual morning reading and social media check, I did a few domestic sorts of things yesterday morning, you know, washing dishes, laundry, remaking the bed, straightening things. Nesting behaviors.

Watching White Tailed Prairie Dogs forage from our windows.  The Dogs live in our front yard and in our back yard and they have young ones making their way out of the burrows into the world above ground, foraging, and engaging in a bit of rough and tumble as kids will do.

My phone tells me we are at 4,790 feet (1,415 meters) above sea level at the residences near the Quarry Visitor Center. High desert. Not far away from us is Split Mountain peaking out at 7,642 feet (2,329 meters).

I mentioned my cycling is a bit challenging here.  It's a world of up and down.  The scale of my surroundings is also challenging.  Cub Creek Road provides spectacular vistas with long sweeping curves and long downhill/uphill views of the Monument mountains. 

So far, everytime I'm out riding feels like I'm seeing the Monument for the first time.

Yesterday was one of those days. The clouds were high and light, just a bit fluffier than Cirus, not quite Cumulus Nimbus. They provided a very nice diffused light for photographs.

I've decided to stay close to home when cycling for the next little bit and use Cub Creek Road in DINO to get back into riding shape. I'm really not out of shape, but I can stand to cycle more consistently and get a bit stronger near term. Cub Creek Road from our residence to Josie Morris Cabin provides a beautiful and challenging terrain for Spring Training.

We haven't had any rain since our arrival on April 20. The humidity is low.  My nose and skin tell me so. Today the humidity is 25% under mostly sunny skies. The temperature is delightful at 73 degrees F. The windows and doors are opened wide to take in a gentle breeze.

I'm about to head out yet again for another bit of cycling. Probably fewer photographs today, enjoy those I made yesterday. DINO, your National Monument, is a magical place.

We're finishing up day three here at Dinosaur National Monument (DINO).  Melanie has a couple of work days behind her and I've taken a couple of very nice bicycle rides on Cub Creek Road which runs in front of our residence and east past two campgrounds and various sites within the monument.

The month before we arrived here neither of us got much exercise as travel up the California and Oregon Coasts accompanied by cool and/or rainy weather didn't permit it. Couple that with being at nearly 5,000' above sea level here in Jensen, Utah and I'm feeling the miles I've put in on the bike over the past couple of days.

It's early, but Melanie tells me she's enjoying the new environs here at DINO and the folks with whom she's going to be working.

The landscape here is other worldly. Here are a few images from today's cycling. I'll fill in the blanks as the season progresses.

We traveled from Salt Lake City, Utah to Jensen, Utah yesterday, our last "Travel Day" until October 18, 2025.

Melanie begins work tomorrow as a Seasonal Interpretive Ranger for Dinosaur National Monument.   This will be our longest time in place since we began full time travel.  I'm sure we'll spend some time traveling around exploring and camping in Utah and Colorado as our season progresses.

Another difference for us is housing provided by NPS. We've pretty much completed a move from Miranda into a one bedroom apartment as of today.

We ran errands today, picking up groceries and a few items we needed to make things a bit more livable. The apartment is clean, with new appliances.  I cleaned the nice windows we have facing North and South.  We have communal laundry and a fire pit.

Our animal neighbors include magpies, white tailed prairie dogs, robins, osprey, great blue herons, mountain lions, big horn sheep, gopher snakes, and black bear.   We'll post photos as we catch them on camera.

We've got lots of hiking, river rafting, camping and learning to do.  We both agree the season's gonna be great.  Watch this space.

Salt Lake City to Jensen, Utah and Dinosaur National Monument

Melanie and I attended the "Hands Off" protest sponsored by the 50501 Movement in Everett, Washington yesterday.  This protest makes the third of its kind we've attended, and it was by far the largest one.  There were easily several thousand in attendance at the Snohomish County Courthouse.