Dinos dinos everywhere! 8.7.10

This morning started bright and early (despite a late night.....) with the kids up at 6:30 and all of us out and at the visitor’s center by 8:30, in time for the shuttle ride/tour.  The unfortunate thing about our visit here right now is that the main event, the dino quarry at the visitor's center, is closed.  Said visitor’s center, built in the 50’s I believe, has been condemned and is being rebuilt.  We knew this going in, but still, it’s a bummer.  We’ll have to stop by next year on our way home when it reopens.  Anyway, the park now offers a shuttle ride down a road that’s not open to the public at the moment and then a guided hike up to see some cool fossilized dino bones - that you can actually touch!

That big mountainside 'wall' is where we were heading to see an abundance of fossilized bones.

That strip of white, just below the arrow tip is the vertebrae

Inventor checking out a fossilized bone up close and personal -



What we saw was pretty darn cool but we would have loved to see the quarry itself with it's massive amounts of bones.  Like I said, we need to come back.  I’m glad we caught the first shuttle out since the sun was beating down on us and it felt like 90 when in reality it was apparently only 74!

Heading back down -

Whirlwind at the temperary visitor's center, measuring up to a dino leg -

The rest of day was spent relaxing, hanging ‘round the site and biking around.  In the evening, after quite a storm blew through, the older kids and I headed over to hear a ranger presentation about another site in the park.  This site is an old cabin (which we’ll see tomorrow) built and run by a single women homesteader back in the early 1900’s.  Quite the tough cookie she was.  Married, divorced and/or widowed 5 times by the age of 35 I believe, and back then yet!

....Back from the presentation we’re settled in to our snug and warm RV tonight as the temps outside drop a bit (but not too much) and it’s pretty wet.  Hoping for a nicer evening tomorrow when there’s another star gazing program offered.