The Green river from the Dinosaur NP campground

While the kids and I stirred slowly to life in the tent Scott was out exploring and taking pictures of the Green River along our campground.

When Cody finally did wake he shouted, “ Squirrels!”  Which isn’t an uncommon occurrence for Cody.  However, what was uncommon this morning was Cody’s determination in getting my attention.  “No, Mom!  Squirrels are in our van!”

Sure enough squirrels were in our van.  Scott had left the doors open while he cooked up our breakfast of pancakes at another site.  The kids took it on as their mission to scare the squirrels away by beating on the van to scare them out.  I discovered later that they had the same craving for chocolate Teddy Grahams as Cody does.  They ate the whole bag.  Cody was a little sad.

When they tired of trying to scare away the squirrels they rested in the shade away from the hot hot sun.

We stopped at the visitor’s center to pick up the Junior Ranger Books and watch the quick twelve minute movie.  We would have liked to get in more, but we were on a mission to fix the air conditioning in the van.  Turns out July 24th is a holiday in Utah as Utah was founded on July 24th, we were told by the mechanic we were referred to from the ranger at our campground.  This does not bode well for getting the air fixed quickly.

I had told Scott that we were camping anyway, that we could tough out the lack of air.  Scott looked at me like I had just said I wanted to have a third kid.  A look of complete and utter disbelief.  “We are turning around and going back to the Rockies if we have to go without air.”  I was okay with that too.  In the end Scott was adamant that we get the air fixed and sooner rather that later.  So less than twenty-four hours after we lost air we are on a hunt to fix it.

Yahoo!  A big shout out to ALLPRO or Preece Automotive Repair in Vernal, Utah.  Wes did an amazing job in about three hours.  He even patiently showed us our old air conditioning compressor as Scott was determined to prove that only the clutch in the old compressor was broken, not the whole compressor.  Scott was bummed that he had to let someone else do repair work that he could have done, but we just didn’t have the time or the tools with us.  After I read this paragraph to him he reiterated, “It was just the clutch though.”  Wes explained that there was no way he could have gotten just a clutch in such a short timeframe.  I knocked on the fake wood in the car and reminded everyone in the car that we should be thankful that that was all that was broken.  It always makes me a little nervous driving on desolate roads that advertise, “Next services sixty miles away.”  Especially when the hot hot sun is beating down and it is almost 100 degrees outside.

This is the pre-hike picture from the car repair shop to the library.  It was a fifteen to twenty minute walk from the shop to the library.  I loved the sign in the library.  Then there is Brooke at the library.  The next picture is of Cody and Brooke at the restaurant with a turtle carved out of wood used as a water fountain.  Cody doesn’t usually pose for pictures so I snapped a picture as quickly as I could.

Cody was a little squirrely at the restaurant.  The town of Vernal was quite beautiful with giant pots of petunias everywhere.

Cody wanted to jump in the boat.  It was a replica of the boat taken by John Wesley Powell down the Green and Colorado Rivers.  The picture to the right of that is of the supplies they often took.  Scott’s favorite is the one all the way in the right hand corner of the picture.  A toilet made out an army ammo canister called a groover.

While we waiting for the car to be fixed we hung out at the library.  Yeah for libraries!  We also ate lunch at a local diner and stopped in at a free heritage museum that had some Smithsonian artifacts on display.  The displays were about journeys across the US.   Cody was determined to walk on his “mini-sidewalk” instead of the large sidewalk.  I mentioned that he falls more frequently that way.  He responded, “That’s the point Mom.  You walk on a balance beam to fall off.”  I am so glad he enlightened me. If you haven’t noticed all the pictures with Cody in it Brooke has to be in too.

Then we headed back to Dinosaur National Park to claim a campsite, get Junior Ranger badges, and head to the quarry for a tour.

Earl Douglass first found eight dinosaur tail bones sticking out of the rock here in 1909.

Brooke touching a dinosaur fossil

There are almost four hundred different dinosaurs found in the Carnegie Quarry.  The reason there are so many bones found here is that this spot was once a watering hold.  Animals fell into it and were preserved.  Over time the water was filled in with sediment that fossilized the bones.  Eventually the land was pushed up and was vertical instead of horizontal.

This was another spot where Cody was grinning from ear to ear the whole time.  He wanted pictures of everything.  There was a giant wall of real dinosaur bones that they let you touch.  There was a giant sign that said no climbing.  Cody can’t quite read everything yet, so he scrambled right up the rocks before I could get to him.  No fear.  A very helpful ranger and his big sister helped him down.

So after the quarry tour we could have taken the tram back to the visitor’s center.  However, Scott thought it would be a better idea to walk the trail back.  There was only one small problem, we didn’t bring our camel backs full of water since Scott said it would be a quick tram ride, no hiking, it was ninety-nine degrees (no exaggeration) and it was the hottest part of the day.  Thankfully we did have two regular water bottles and we thoroughly doused ourselves before embarking on the hike.  Years ago I would get upset at even contemplating such a hike being unprepared without food or extra water.  The kids are a little older now and I have become somewhat used to Scott’s adventurous surprises.

The hike was 1.5 miles if you took all the extra spurs to see different types of fossils.  We did not follow all of the spurs, but we probably hiked close to a mile.

The kids are touching a femur bone on the rock. Scott thought this wild rock outcrop looked like a man on one side and a lion on the other.  The picture to the right is a petroglyph.  It was on a large rock, also known as peeing rock, that provided some much appreciated shade for a few moments.

When we entered into the quarry area on the tram the tram had to stop for the gate to open.  One of the kids asked, “Woah!  What’s with the big gate?”  The driver responded, “Don’t worry.  This is just the gate to our real life version of Jurassic Park.”  The picture in the middle was of a mini cave Cody found in a rock.  The kids were so hot and tired Cody had begged me to climb into the cave.  Notice how much bigger his smile is once he is back in the air conditioning at the visitor’s center.  Plus he is next to a dinosaur bone again.  He LOVES dinosaurs.

The kids really loved the dinosaur table where you could play with the dinosaurs and even purchase them.  The kids created a stegosaurus protection semi-circle with the babies on the interior  and the largest of the stegos on the outside.

Back at camp Scott emptied the 5 gallon bucket for our laundry and let the kids dump water on each other to their hearts’ content.  Scott decided he wanted a sun shower.  Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to get clean. I had one too.  In the middle of my showering Scott decided to take a picture.  He made me promise to put one in.  I did, but I cropped it quite a bit.  The water was very cold, but it felt oh so good.  Especially since it had been a whole week since I had had a shower.  It is interesting that sometimes after one really hard run or bike ride I have to have a shower right away.  On vacation camping I am almost always covered in dirt and sweat so full showers only keep me feeling refreshed for a little bit.  I just worry about anyone who happens to get too close to us!

Marion shared her very cool car coloring markers with us.  The van drew looks before, but now it says, “Brooke and Cody’s funnest trip.”  We now see people taking pictures of the care multiple times a day.  We were very thankful to be next to our very fun camp neighbors again.  Robbie suggested a canoeing trip on the Colorado River that we will definitely look into.  Robbie also suggested a river table and an alcohol stove made out of a beer can.  Scott is excited to have more camping related projects.