Highway 139

Some of the most interesting areas of Colorado are far off the
interstate and we found ourselves on one of them yesterday
afternoon. We were driving around north of Fruita and I
decided to head north on Highway 139. It starts in the
tiny town of Loma and heads north until it ends just outside
of Rangely. About halfway through the trip we crossed
Douglas Pass. Douglas Pass isn't a really high mountain
pass, but it's pretty, and from the top, you can see Colorado
National Monument, near our house, and even as far as the
La Sal Mountains, which are just east of Moab.


Between Douglas Pass and Rangely, there are a number of Fremont
Culture Petroglyphs, and the BLM has done a really nice job of
creating pull-offs from the highway, so that travelers can safely
pull off the road and view them. There are about a dozen areas
to view, but we decided to come back another time to view them
all. This time, we stopped at two different areas. The first stop
featured Waving Hands.


At the same pullover, was a large panel, featuring a strange
looking figure. He seemed to be protected by a number of
bird's nests located directly above.


Up the road a few miles, is the Kokopelli Recreation Site pullover.
It features an interesting panel with several featured subjects.


This is a Kokopelli figure, or as he is called variously throughout
the Southwest, the Hump Backed Flute Player. Hundreds if not
thousands of Kokopelli figures have been found throughout the
southwest, and this location is one of the farthest north figures
discovered.


This hodge podge of figures shows lots of interesting work.
The information given here wasn't very descriptive, so I'd like
to see if I can find out what exactly we're looking at here.


This figure reminded me of one of the ghosts from the Pac Man game!