Monday, July 26th

We have two main goal for today – Dinosaur National Monument and packing our bulging suitcases! Dinosaur is only ten miles down the road, so we have time to check out the breakfast offering here at the good ol’ Rodeway Inn. It’s about what we expected, bagels, muffins, juice. Period. We take a glass of juice and I snag two of the mini-muffins with mini-chocolate chips. Marilyn toasts a bagel and we go back to our room for OUR coffee and more instant oatmeal. Much better!

Off now to Dinosaur, although I suspect Marilyn is just humoring me! She’s convinced that a rock is a rock and has no expectations for today. We stop at the temporary visitors’ center and learn that the old one has been closed since 2006. It was built on bentonite back in the 50s. Geez! Didn’t they know how dangerous that would be! Can you say “swelling clay”??

Anyway, the girl at the counter says the shuttle is leaving and do we want to go? We don’t have all our gear and decide to wait until the next one in twenty minutes. It gives us time to check out the displays and to get our water, hats and sunscreen out of the car.

The shuttle takes us to the hike to the fossils. First is a stop at the Mowry Shale. It contains fish scales and so far Marilyn is politely interested. I tell her that I have to see the Morrison, even if I have to crawl! The shuttle driver had told us that the temperatures will reach 99 and will be ten degrees higher where we’re going and I’m afraid I may really have to crawl!

We pass a mom and her young son and she assures us that it isn’t much further and when we actually get to the exposure of the Morrison there is a ranger, John who meets us. We’ve let the other people from our shuttle get ahead of us and we have John to ourselves for a few minutes before he swaps out with Erica.

What bliss! I’m touching the Morrison!! It’s one thing to read about famous formations and quite another to see and touch them. Look at all those dinosaur fragments! I’ve climbed up a bit and John directs my attention a foot to the right. WOW! Look at that!

John tells us a couple of stories that he doesn’t usually share. One is about his “gift from the Universe.” He was walking down the path and tripped! He is quite sure –footed and was very surprised, so he looked down to see what had caused it. There was a rock with a never-before-seen group of fossil fragments! They were his discovery! John said he was just like an eight-year old, brushing aside the loose matrix and turning over the fragments in his hands. Then, like the good doobie he is, he returned them to the path for others to marvel over!

Another amazing story: Within the past year, there was a horrendous rainstorm and after the rain was over, the rangers discovered that the water had washed some materials out of the rock. Back almost a hundred years ago, when Earl Douglas was discovering dinosaur bones, he left four sticks of dynamite in a crevice. They were buried and lay undiscovered until now! When found, the sticks clearly were dated 1921! The park was closed and no one was allowed on the trail; and the rangers couldn’t tell the visitors why! Talk about outrage!

Four hours later Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived and blew up the dynamite! The sticks were still active and people had been walking past them for decades, never knowing the danger! Amazing!!

Erica arrives with the newest hikers and begins pointing out some of the major fossils, including a section of backbone and a huge humerous! There are fragments everywhere! They are easy to spot by their structure and color and it is just such a kick to point them out to the kids behind me on the trail! Check out the huge femur and the hunk of spine! Look at those vertebrae! The biggest kick of all, though, is to see Marilyn getting excited about rocks and fossils!! I’m still pretty euphoric as we hike back to the shuttle stop and sit under the welcome canopy, enjoying the surprising breeze!

When we get back to the visitors center we fill our water bottles (Sure glad we bought those two gallons of water two weeks ago! We’re finally using them!) and set off on the auto tour. There are stops where we can see pictographs and petroglyphs, others with beautiful vistas and discussions of the geologic processes which created the valleys and, at the end of the fifteen-mile trail, a cabin that was built by Josie Bassett Morris. She was an amazing woman! She lived out in the wilderness, creating a complete working ranch, without running water or electricity! And she did it all by herself! She died at ninety as a result of a broken hip. The first photo is of her chicken coop; the next is her cabin.

The tilted, colored bands of rock are the Morrison Formation!

Other stops included Turtle Rock , Elephant Toes Rock and an overlook of the Daniels/Chew Ranch. A couple of miles of the autotour actually run through the ranch and we are reminded that this is private property. In 1941 Douglas Chew purchased the ranch for $12,000. There are 1100 acres including grazing rights.

In the second petroglyph photo, how many lizards can you spot?

On the way out we stop at the first of the pullouts and finish up with more petroglyphs. Happily this is a short hike with not much elevation change! It’s the middle of the afternoon and boy of wow is it hot! And we’re still at about 5,000 feet. Pretty high for us flatlanders, even after almost three weeks!

Back to the visitors center where John makes sure we’ve had a great time and we buy petryglyph reproductions for our walls. I finally succumb to the need for a commemorative t-shirt, just to remember that I still know some geology!

Driving back there are lots of signs of how important the drilling industry is in the art of the world. There is a large manufacturer of drilling mud and lots of places to wash off big rigs.

The Rodeway Inn sign says it all about our motel!

Back to Vernal for dinner at BJ’s. Somehow we’ve gotten all the way to four o’clock with only breakfast in our tummies! And a lot of water!

The salad bar is loaded with veggies, fruit and protein and is only $5.99!! And we can pie to go! That also leaves time for a bit of picture taking down main street. There are huge pots of petunias everywhere and there is a little park called Cobble Rock Park right in the middle of town. It has manmade geysers and there are a couple of kids playing in the cool water. It must be so refreshing!

Vernal is also home to the Utah Field House of Natural History with a wooly mammoth and stegosaurus out front – and more petunias! And another sign of how important the gas and oil industry is in this part of the country!

Back at the motel we bring in everything from the car. I am fighting with my stuff, to get is all into my suitcase, my backpack and my camera bag. As I battle Marilyn blogs, saying she’ll deal with hers in the morning. I don’t think I can sleep until I know I can win the fight! It’s a tough one, but I’m victorious! Good thing we’ve already decided to check our suitcases! No way I could lift mine and even if I could, it would never fit in the overhead compartment! Where did all this stuff come from? I’ve even opened the expando-zipper! Glad I bought a new suitcase!

Pie and coffee for dinner and time for bed. Tomorrow will just be cleaning up and driving to Salt Lake City and our flight leaves the next morning at 7:50, so we’ll have to grab breakfast right at 6:00 and head to the airport to turn in the car, check our bags and clear security. Might be tight; but I’m sure we’ll make it!