taylor time: Dinosaur Time!

One of the most well-preserved skeletons ever discovered. The head of the flesh eating Allosaurus.

So, traveling we went to Dinosaur National Park in Utah (our new home) last weekend and what an experience. Bones, petroglyphs, quarries, museums, psychotic chipmunks, and interesting campground people. And all of it only a few hours from our home!

Before this trip, I had never heard of Dinosaur National Park. Who would have thought that this place is littered with dinosaur bones? They are literally sticking out of the mountains and scattered throughout the quarry. The main museum/visitor center/dinosaur bones viewing station is literally built right into the mountain. People who aren't necessarily into hiking on 100 degree sand up the fossil trail, can take the tram from the visitor center to the museum. Of course, we had to do both. Anna in particular grew beat red in her excitement.

the tourists

So, after traveling through the hot quarry we headed back to the campsite to cool by the river!

Caleb was our firewood fetcher.

That night around 10pm as we quietly sat by the campfire, a woman approached our campsite. Shining her painfully bright flashlight right into our faces she shouted with her thick German accent that there were thieves in the camp who stole her camera battery charging in the bathroom. We were to return it by the morning and if not, she was reporting us to the police. She proceeded to make her way through the whole camp, yelling and demanding and waking people up for quite a while after that. In the morning, the boys were elated to see a reward posted in the bathroom. Whoever found the battery got $50. They talked with her and she told them she would reward them with gummy bears from Germany. Not to be fooled by this, they said they would find the battery for ME to turn in thereby securing their $50 reward which would promptly be used to buy Lego. Unfortunately they failed. Aside from that it was a great campsite situated right next to the Green River. Another note about camping: Don't be surprised to find people not properly dressed to use the camp restroom. Apparently some people think they are the only ones using it in the middle of the night.

Arriving at the campsite, we were surrounded by hordes of chipmunks. It was as if we showed up in Africa to a bunch of starving children.They surrounded us and eventually scampered through our van, ate into our trailmix as we stood 3 feet away and generally acted like the rodents they are. Later in the day, Jesse yelled "OH NOOO" from the back seat. It took me about 20 questions to get him to a place where he exclaimed: "There's a CHIPMUNK in the van!". At this moment, the chipmunk flew across Caleb straight to the front of the van. The rest of the morning would bring several different chipmunk attacks. Normally all would be quiet and then the chipmunk would all of a sudden flip out, come out of hiding and jump all over everyone. Eventually we decided we would have to remove everything from the van and lift all the seats up. Only then did it decide to leave us and we watched it flee with great gusto from underneath the back seat.

The final day we drove and then hiked to some great Indian petroglyphs and hiked to the very first box canyon I have ever seen.

Jesse along the petroglyphs

of course, everyone had to climb up into the hole

Can you spot Josh's yellow shirt? Eagles had just been soaring in the canyon.

the amazing walls in the box canyon

a rock cubby

All in all, a great trip. We can't wait to explore more of Utah's amazing wilderness and stories of old! In a couple weeks we're heading to Zion where cooler temperatures hopefully await.