Day 36

 July 22 - Dinosaur National Park, UT

We had a calm morning - we didn't need to leave our campsite very early because the drive to Dinosaur National Park was only about four hours. We ate a leisurely breakfast and slowly cleaned up camp. Cassandra and I walked out to the Salt Lake this morning.

It is amazing how hard it is to judge distance - it was so much further away than it seemed from our campsite. The kids eventually found us...

Even though I find this place to beautiful and fascinating, I am happy to move on as it has been tough out here: hot and draining. We should visit this place outside of the middle of the summer when the weather is more reasonable.

Our drive across northing Utah was simple and visually stunning. We didn't need to stop and made it via the highway to Dinosaur National Monument around 3pm. We stopped at the Visitor Center and immediately explored the dinosaur fossils.

The dinosaur quarry is absolutely amazing - a huge exposed rock-slab that reveals well-preserved (and many nearly complete) dinosaur fossils. This place doesn't seem real or possible! The history behind this quarry is compelling and really special - an example of educational preservation. The kids were blown away by what they saw.

We watched a video about the monument and the natural space we found ourselves in. This place is much more vast and beautiful that either Cassandra or I were expecting - I was expecting bleak, flat desert land. Instead, we were surrounded by violent peaks and glorious sights of Split Mountain. It was really cool learning about how the mountains formed here and why the layers looked as diagonal as they did (rather than flat or horizontal). Without this seismic activity, these fossils would likely never have been pushed toward the surface and eventually found.

Leaving the Visitor Center, we drove to our campsite, which was in a grove of old cottonwood trees (old friends and companions!) along the Green River down a steep drive to the bank. 

It was a really neat-looking campground. We setup camp and tried to find the shadiest places for some refreshing cool. The kids settled into some shade in the adjacent unoccupied campsite and worked on their Junior Ranger packets (for both Dinosaur and Archeologist).

This place is awesome, but pretty hot (it was actually hotter here than at Antelope, but there was more shade to be had, making Dinosaur feel more reasonable). However, the heat and travel left us all feeling whipped, so we ate a simple dinner and mellowly explored the campground for the rest of the evening. We even became acquainted with an overly-friendly ground squirrel. 

That's our friend cooling off in the background...

I eventually had to run out to a gas station to get ice while Cassandra and the children attended a Ranger Talk about wildlife.

The Ranger Talk (and my trip) became disrupted by a brief, but intense windstorm that beat out faces with sand and was pretty freaky (they were riding bikes when they got hit by it!). 

I'm really excited to be moving eastward and homeward. We are all feeling strained - Evelyn is still not well from whatever sickness hit her, and I'm hoping she can bounce back to her full-strength-self before the end of the trip.