Thursday we concluded our visit to Dinosaur National Monument with a visit to the quarry, interpretive drive, petroglyphs and pictographs, short hikes, and swimming.
The quarry was our first stop for the day. We road a little tram up the hill to the quarry where the bones of hundreds of dinosaurs were found in the early 1900’s. While the actual quarry size was much larger than what we visited, the archeologists at the time removed most of the fossils from the surrounding area and left a portion of dinosaur bones half excavated along a wall of the quarry, which was later enclosed in a large building for public viewing. The site was impressive to say the least. It also showed a lot of foresight for the education of future generations.
While our next official business was the interpretive drive, visiting the gift shop at each location has become quite the event in its own right. Officially, Jason collects t-shirts and now bumper stickers at each stop. He also gets a new hat on each trip. I continue to collect hat pins and Christmas ornaments, Lucas collects coins, and Samus collects magnets at each stop. Marcus is suddenly collecting a variety of items including hiking patches, hiking stick medallions, and postcards. Honestly, I’m not one hundred percent sure what Marcus is collecting. It seems to grow at each stop. All I know is that if he wants to collect patches, he needs to learn how to sew them onto something.
In addition to the various collections happening each boy earned money to spend however they wanted. Lucas earned $150, Samus $75, and Marcus $50. Marcus has $5 left. The other two haven’t spent a dime. I predict Samus will either buy books or not spend his money. He has very few needs, but he has read a ton of books already and needs new material. Lucas has also been devouring books, but I predict he will buy some giagantic stuffed creature which he HAS TO HAVE and may or may not fit in the camper in a reasonable way. I digress.
The interpretive drive was informative and best of all, was accessed largely in the air-conditioned car. Ah. Air-conditioning. The highlights of the drive were a short trail to some ancient people’s petroglyphs and Josie’s Ranch.
Josie was a tough nut. At the age of forty (in the early nineteen twenties) she moved to the remote inhospitable desert where she built her own cabins, tended her livestock, and lived without any modern conveniences until her death at age 89. Her last cabin was still standing and was remarkably cozy. There were still newspaper shreds attached to the cabin walls and I caught glimpses of a few dates at the turn of the 20th century. Lucas was unimpressed by all of Josie’s ranch because it was dirty and full of bugs.
He’s been flipping out anytime he sees a moth, spider, ant, fly, or any other tiny insect. The problem is, he screams so loud and earnestly that it makes you think he’s about to be eaten by a bear. “AGGHHHHH! Spider!!!” he shrieks as he scuttles as high as he can on whatever he’s near. Which makes it super weird that he was literally bathing in a super weirdo sand substance that held the same properties of either chocolate syrup or oobleck, depending on the amount of water the boys added. I mean, who knows what kind of strange little sand fleas/critters were living in that yuck!
At any rate, the little lake we found served its purpose of cooling us the heck down. People were getting more and more frequent bouts of heat rage and had their not been a lake, I fear Jason would have screamed, “that’s it. We’re going home.” And then actually followed through.
As if we needed confirmation: The Munschs still do not do well in the heat. Too bad we were headed for Salt Lake City and two consecutive 90+degree days.
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