Well, we've arrived in Vernal, Utah, aka Dinosaurland. This little town of 10,000 definitely capitalizes on being next to Dinosaur National Monument. So far the town doesn't look all that great. The little KOA we're staying at is nice enough. Grassy flat spots, a few trees (no shade for us, unfortunately. Our thermometer reads 113 degrees on our dashboard). They also have a heated pool (Mark just took Katie there), cable TV (I'm watching the CNN coverage of the Louisiana situation) and wi-fi. We'll be here five days, since it's the holiday weekend and there is noplace else with room. Later today we'll check out town, and tomorrow we'll go see the dinosaur diggings. I'm looking forward to that.
Well, Katie made a new friend at the pool, a little girl named Madeline Davenport, who is just the same age and just the same height. Her family lives just north of Denver, and she is a great match for Katie as a playmate. I'm so happy they met, and we walked over to their camper so I could meet them, and I really like Will and Sarah. Madeline also has a baby brother, Luke, who is two months old. Apparently, Will and Sarah started to do a long trip just like the one we are on, and Sarah got pregnant on the trip. With no medical insurance, (like us), they decided to scrap the trip and settle near some famliy in North Carolina for a couple years. They lost their trip, but got Madeline instead, and I think that's a darn good trade.
They leave here on Sunday, (we're here till Tuesday) so we'll try to work around their plans so the girls can play as much as possible.
Saturday, September 3
Well, this morning just as Mark left to run, Katie woke up and sadly told me she'd had an accident in the bed. It's only the second one on the whole trip, and both times she had fallen asleep in her clothes, without having a chance to go potty first. She handled it very well, just like a big girl would, so I'm proud of her. So I'm doing laundry today, and she's down at Madeline's camper, the two of them are riding their bikes together awhile. It looks like today will be an in-camp day, which is fine with me. The dinosaurs have been here 60 million years and they'll be here tomorrow.
Here are Katie and Madeline on their bikes:
This afternoon, we hung around with Will and Sarah, chatting about how similar Katie and Madeline are. Both girls are very verbal, inquisitive, and also have a bit of a defiant streak. I hope we have neighbors as cool as them wherever we settle.
Sunday, September 4
Madeline came over this morning while Will and Sarah got ready to leave. They have almost 400 miles to drive today, as well as visiting with a friend along the way, so Madeline didn't get to stay too long, but she and Katie watched some Shrek 2. Here are the girls in our RV:
We rode bikes down to the Davenports' camper, since Madeline didn't want to leave our RV. Katie had a wipe-out on the way down, but forgot all about it when Madeline showed her her homemade kite and they ran around the horseshoe fields making it go (and flossing their teeth on the floss string for the kite). It was sad seeing them go. Here they are, about to drive off (we didn't let them take Katie along, despite Katie wanting to):
After lunch, we headed out to see Dinosaur National Monument.
It was actually very cool, not hokie at all. Here is the visitor's center there:
You walk in on the second floor and look down on the archeological dig, which began in 1909 and ended in 1991. It is easy to see bones still left in the rock. They won't be removed--below them is bedrock, so they are left for visitors to see. Here is a detail of the wall, so you can see some of the bones:
How did the bones get on a steep slope? It was flat back then, a riverbed. During droughts, the dinosaurs would come here hoping to drink, and many died in this area. Subsequent floods covered their bodies with sediment, and also stirred up many of their bones (though some skeletons were found almost perfect and complete). The building they are in is ingeneously built against the remaining hillside (most of the bone-containing material was excavated away--the hill was twice as tall and much wider back in 1909). I tried to show how the walls are just a thin membrane against the hillside in this picture:
Here we are, in front of a femur:
You are allowed to touch many of the bones there, which is really satisfying. Here is a hill showing how much the layered rock has tilted since the dinosaurs lived here:
After seeing the cool dinosaur bones, we took a little auto tour through part of the monument, and got to see lots of petroglyphs. You can (unfortunately) get right up to them, and some folks have put graffiti on them or touched them, but all in all they are in great shape I think. Here is one example:
To get to some of the petroglyphs, you have to climb up some crumbly steps and rocks. Here are Mark and Katie at the top of one stretch:
The tour ends at a cabin that was built and lived in by an old settler woman. Here she is with her trusty rifle:
She lived without electricity or running water (except what came from a spring nearby) until she died of a broken hip, in 1964 (the year Mark was born) at 90. wow. Here's what is left of her log home:
I don't know if we would enjoy such solitude, but you can't complain about a lack of beauty out there.
Tomorrow, we'll visit the Dinosaur Field Museum here, where Katie will be able to do some hands-on stuff I think. Should be fun.
Labor Day, September 5
Today we drove out to Dinosaur, Colorado, to the eastern opening to Dinosaur NM, where you can see some dramatic canyons, if no dinosaurs.
The 23-mile road had some great views from its turnouts, but by far, the best part was a 13-mile dirt road down one of the canyons toward the end, to Echo Park. The road is steep, and when you get to the bottom, the walls are perpendicular and tall above you. Here are a few views:
There were relics left by settlers, such as this old RV:
Maybe we could get it with a trade-in.
Here are two of the old log cabins left behind. I wish the hills behind them looked as good in the picture as they did in person.
One of my favorite stops along the road was "whispering cave, which was a gash about 7 feet tall at its tallest, and maybe 30 feet across, in a wall well over 200 feet tall. Near it, you can feel a cool breeze (probably 20 degrees cooler than the hot outside air). Inside, it's really interesting--it gets real narrow but you can't see how high the gash goes, it goes so high. Here are some pics:
Mark near the outside. It's so tall, I had to stich together to pictures to get it all.
Katie inside, near the opening
Katie and I inside, near the opening:
Mark and Katie in the crevice. You can go at least 25 feet in each direction from the opening, but it gets so dark it's scary to test the limits of the cave. Too bad we didn't have a flashlight.
Near the end of the dirt road, we saw a family of deer. Here is one of them, hiding against a cliff:
At the end, you get to the Yampa River, where it makes a big bend. Here is a panorama of the bend, and then a shot of the tall monolith it bends around.
We also saw some roadkill--a coyote by the road--that had attracted first a buzzard, and then later a golden eagle. We tried getting shots of it; here's the best we did. When the eagle flew off, as we crept too close, its wingspan looked to be five feet wide.
Mark took a hike from the end of our auto tour, out to a narrow promontory. From there, he got these spectacular shots, showing some of the amazing geology around here. Millions and millions of years of sediment were upended as the Rockies rose. This area shows both the flat layers of the Colorado Plateau and the bent rocks that reveal the Morrison Formation (where the Jurassic dinosaurs are found).
Tuesday, September 6
Well, I forgot we even had today to look around. This morning, while Mark was out for a walk, he almost got attacked by two vicious dogs nearby. He screamed them down, but he's had to do that so many times, as a runner and a biker, and it always takes something out of him. He called animal control to talk to the owner. The dogs had left their yard and even crossed the highway, just to bare teeth and growl at him.
While he was on his walk, I decided to trim Katie's hair. She sort of wants it long again, but I want it short until she's ready to take care of it. I only had about five minutes to do it, as opposed to the twenty minutes the professionals get with her in the salon, and I didn't have a spray bottle or good scissors, but I think it turned out pretty good. I think I'll try to take her in someplace and have them even it up:
After lunch, we drove over to the local museum so Katie could do some hands-on dinosaur stuff. It was a wonderful, if small museum, which really teaches what it must be like to dig up dinosaur bones in this area. You get to touch lots of real fossils and, maybe unfortunately, learn exactly where in town to dig if you want to find your own (they hope that no one will actually do that). It was fun, and then we found an ice cream place, and then I ran some errands while Mark and Katie went exploring and swimming. After dinner, we met a couple of brothers camping here, who live in Salem, Oregon. They live on ten acres, with cherry trees. They sell their cherries to a local co-op that makes them into marichino cherries, but Norman said they are best fresh. They gave Katie a couple apples from their farm, and maybe some day we'll get to visit them and have a fresh cherry or two. They're on their way to Steamboat Springs, and we suggested they try the pool/spring we went to.
Bye-bye, Vernal! Tomorrow we'll head up to our campground between the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. Our internet connection may be poor or nonexistant, so we might not be able to update this for awhile. We'll be in Yellowstone for six nights, then we'll try to head up to Glacier National Park.
Wednesday, September 7
Here is a parting shot of our spot, after we left it:
and the campground's sign (one last dinosaur for the road):
We left early, since we have a long ride today.