Monday, June 15, 2015

The Scenic Potash Drive

It's hot!  We spent some time this morning thinking about leaving Moab early, but we can't.  This coming weekend is Father's Day.  Apparently everyone goes camping for Father's Day.  So we could not book anything new for Friday and Saturday.  Please make a note of this for the future.
We drove out the scenic Potash drive.  It's a road that goes out to the potash plant whose evaporation ponds are visible from Dead Horse Point State Park.  There is much scenery out there, as well.


There is Indian writing.


These were about 15 feet up, so it was hard to get a decent picture of the petroglyphs.




This is the Jug Handle arch.


The potash plant is at the end of the road.


There is a rail line going to the plant.  We could see new train cars up at the plant, but we're not sure how they get out of there.


Recently there has been very heavy rain fall.  The parking lot for the Jug Handle arch is under about three feet of mud, and standing water remains.


The rail line (line crossing the bottom of the picture) has been completely undermined here, and several other places.  One wonders if they will be fixing this.  It was quite the undertaking to put the line in there in the first place.


Did you know that uranium mining is what put Moab on the map?  The mines were a major employee during the cold war.  The UMTRA project is removing mine tailings which were dumped by the side of the Colorado river and relocating them to Crescent Junction.  Here is a wiki on the subject.  They also appear to be burying scrap metal at the site.  It's a huge work area.  There are radiation signs on the fence surrounding it.


Did I mention it's hot?  This afternoon we made sun shades out of aluminum foil.  The one on the left is the prototype.  The second one was structurally more sound.  We've got the black Shadez on the exterior of the windows, but we're facing west and the front of the bus is like an oven.  Hopefully this will help with the heat.


We're here for two more days.  Given the climate, we'll have to be up and out for any mountain biking.  

1 comment:

  1. $700 million to remove the waste? We pay the bill to clean up but probably didn't get any of the original profit I assume!

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