Camping with the Dinosaurs

     One thing I've been thrilled about since coming to Utah is that we've started camping as a family. I've always loved camping, and Clint is an expert camper, but he did not want to camp in any of the hot and humid locals where we have lived (plus he spent 12 months living in a tent in Iraq and that burned him out a bit).
     The weekend after the 4th of July we headed out to Vernal. We're still new to figuring out which places are good to camp. I picked out Red Fleet Reservoir because of the gorgeous sandstone scenery. It's known as Little Lake Powell to the locals and there are five distinct dinosaur trackways and over 300 dinosaur footprints.
     We arrived after dark and in the first rainstormUtah had seen for three months! We quickly set up the boy's tent and there were only a couple of puddles in their tent :(. But was mostly dry and it was plenty warm. The surprise was how close we were to our neighbors--like four feet! 
     I was hoping this was the picnic area. Nope! Each of those tables is a separate campsite. We really had to get after the boys to not make a peep, which was no fun. They did finally fall to sleep and Clint and I hung out under our picnic table awning till the rain stopped at about 1 a.m. Then we put up our own tent. 
     In the morning we had a breakfast of sausage, eggs and--most important to the harmony of the campsite-- S'Mores, since we weren't able to make S'mores the night before. 
     Then we broke camp. The boys are really turning into good workers. Whenever we have to load or unload, they are getting used to doing a task and coming back and asking what they need to do next. And the whining is even starting to decrease. 

     Jack was begging to go swimming, so we walked down to this little beach near the campsite. You can see the beginning of the zig-zag path that led down to it in this photo. The boys and Clint played and swam by the shore and I took the opportunity for some swim practice. The inlet was about 75 yards across so I did nine laps. After the first 10 yards I stood up and declared, "I'm not doing this!" It really freaks me out to put my face in dark water. Clint said, "Come on..." And eventually I got it together and did it. I found that once I adjusted my goggles correctly so they didn't leak I felt much more comfortable.

     The sandstone ledge you see descending into the lake is where the dinosaur tracks were located. To get there you needed to boat in or take a two-mile hike, which we didn't have time for. So headed on to Dinosaur National Monument.

     We've been waiting for the Carnegie Quarry building to reopen since it closed in 2006 because it was sinking in the clay. The quarry is the largest of its kind in the world and has 1500 dinosaur fossils and that doesn't include the dozens of complete skeletons that were taken to Carnegie's museum in Pittsburg. The site was originally 50 feet higher and about 80 feet wider. This is Jurassic country so there are lots of Allosaurus and Stegasaurus here.

It's easy to see the sauropod head here.

     Jack and Trace earned their Jr. Paleontologists Badges! Jack is such a careful artist, it bothered him that the pencils didn't have erasers and his drawings weren't as good as he wanted them to be! But they were really good!