Dinosaur National Monument

On the Dinosaur Train

The quarry

A fossil in the quarry wall. We could actually touch it!

by Andrew

Today we went to Dinosaur National Monument. It was really awesome! There was a shuttle that had pictures of dinosaurs on it and Simeon called it a "Dinosaur Train". We rode it to the quarry. The quarry was a wall of rock with a building built around it with the rock wall as one of the walls. In the rock wall there were dinosaur bones! On the wall opposite the rock wall there were some fully put together dinosaur fossils.

Extra notes by Daddy

The Junior Ranger program here was nice and felt like a manageable amount of work for the morning. The park itself is split up between the quarry to preserve the fossils (and other areas close by where they are still digging) and other landscape and wildlife preservation area. They purposefully chose to preserve the quarry area so that people could see the fossils  in their archeological place. They weren't finding any new species and felt this would be valuable or the public. Aside from a picnic lunch we really only allowed time for seeing the quarry.

From Mama

After the park we drove two hours and stopped in Fruita, CO for mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a small, friendly parish. We sat right up front and in the middle of his homily the priest, who was African, stopped and addressed Simeon saying, "Little boy, take your feet off the seat and sit up so you can listen good." Thank goodness the priest was friendly and Simone is my fourth, otherwise I would have been mortified. As it was, I was only embarrassed. After mass the priest wanted to make it right with Simeon and took the cross from around his neck and gave it to him. We ate dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and then drove the rest of the way to the Apache motel in Moab, UT. Apparently John Wayne used to stay here often. There was a nice extra space just big enough for a rollaway and mini fridge and Simeon scored the rollaway for the two nights we stayed.