Just consider this blog a Throwback Thursday piece because our adventures in Dinosaur National Monument actually took place a full month ago. I was very close to skipping the documentation of this trip altogether but then realized I need to pretend like I’m not too busy to document my daughter’s childhoods. Otherwise I won’t have any hard evidence with which to defend myself to their future therapists. A childhood that included exploration of dinosaur bones can’t be ALL bad, right?
After a lovely visit with Andy’s family in Colorado we were joined by my parents (en route back to CA on their own road trip) and we caravanned to Dinosaur National Monument.
The Quarry allows you to see how the bones were found all jumbled together. Our girls are used to seeing them already assembled in a museum so it was good for them to see how much work it would take to identify, remove, transport, and reassemble the bones like a large puzzle with lots of missing pieces:
They even had a couple of fossils you could touch:
From the Quarry you can hike back to the Visitor’s Center via the short Fossil Discovery Trail. There are fossils that have been left embedded in the rocks for you to find along the hike. Not going to lie: It was kind of thrilling to find them. We also drove through the Park in search ancient petroglyphs. Not a bad view along the way:
The next day we headed to the Field House Museum in Vernal. They have a fantastic program for kids. There are booklets for different age groups with activities and things to look for/do around the museum. Without the booklets we probably would have been done with the museum in about 45 minutes but we spent 2 1/2 hours there! The girls learned a lot and had a blast.
We have a couple of actresses on our hands. They were pretending to be scared for the photo:
In the end they were very proud to get their hard-earned paleontologist patches. It was a great trip!
sarahsjoys 
I must agree. We had a great time and have told several people about what an experience it was seeing the size of these unimaginably huge creatures first-hand. I also thought the girls got much more out of it since they had the booklets to guide them through the exhibit and two very patient parents to help them. I appreciated the fact that the books were age appropriate and at the different learning levels of each. Lilly had one just right for her, and Trin had one aimed at her level. I sound like a teacher, don’t I. Loved being able to share the adventure with you!!!
We did too! So much fun.