When we woke up in the morning, the rain had stopped, we were nice and dry, and we got to see this view. Gorgeous! So we packed up quickly since it looked like more rain was coming, and hopped in the truck to go see some dinosaur bones.
This is just a cool leaf that fell onto our campsite in the wind overnight.
The boys wanted to climb up “the mountain” behind our site, and they were very proud of themselves when they got to the top.
On our way to the Dinosaur Monument Visitor Center, we saw some Petroglyphs. Only Carson and I got out of the van for the 200 ft walk to see the “caveman art”. The Fremont people, who lived more than 1000 years ago, was the culture that painted these Petroglyphs.
Jeff and I thought the boys would be so excited by the dinosaur bones. They thought that the bones were pretty cool, but they were not as overcome with amazement like we thought they would be.
Jeff and the boys worked on their Junior Ranger booklets. The boys love their badges, but don’t really enjoy doing the work in the booklets. I think it reminds them too much of worksheets at school or something. I have to say that I could see myself creating those as a retirement job for the National Park Service. Some of the activities are kind of boring.
The boys got to touch a real live fossil still in the mountain. The liked that but I don’t think they really got the significance that it once belonged to a real live dinosaur. Dinosaurs, to them, are like really cool monsters, sort of like Fluffy the Three-Headed Dog from Harry Potter, or Creepers from Minecraft. Oh well.
They finished their booklets and took the oath to get their badges. Very cute!
And then we were off. We had about 5.5 hours of driving to do, but made regular stops along the way when we saw interesting signs.
We drove through a mine area with danger signs all along the side of the road. We didn’t actually see anything more dangerous than the road already was though.
The scenery was so beautiful!
We made a stop at the Flaming Gorge Dam. They had a visitor center so the boys all went in to watch the video while I looked at some of the books in the gift shop. We didn’t have time to take a guided tour, but I am guessing one of those is in my future since all three boys were enthralled by the dam.
One thing that I found extremely fascinating was the fact that we were either following or crossing the Oregon Trail. I love that history and we saw lots of places where the ruts of the wagon trains still exist. So cool!
So Jeff loves his truck and decided to take a little side trip off road so he could put his truck to good use. It started with stopping by a sign that said wildlife bridge. Then next to that was a sign talking about a Rendezvous of Native Americans. If you haven’t read Centennial by Hermon Wouk, you should definitely read it before traveling in this part of the country.
Anyway, we went on a dirt road up a steep hill, just after a huge storm went through the area. It was pretty cool, but I was definitely glad when we were back on solid roads again. Jeff got some great pictures which he will post to Facebook when we get back home.
We made it into Jackson, Wyoming about dinner time. Our first impression was, “Oh my goodness, look at all the people”. The town is cool, very touristy and expensive, but the views of the mountains were spectacular.
These arches were at the entrances of the city parks that we drove
Look! Dave Hansen has his own Whitewater rafting company!
We ate a delicious meal at Sidewinders. Yum!
We stayed at a hotel on the very northern border of Jackson, so we could do laundry and get a proper shower. The boys immediately wanted to watch TV and do a bigger lego kit. Go at ’em, kids!
Kline Road Trips 