Day 3 - Dinosaur National Monument - Thurs Aug 5 2021

 Well, last night proved to be a little entertaining. I like to think of myself as an experienced pickle, with a certain knowledge of the world that comes from experience. But even I can tell that knocking on a van at 03:30 and asking if the occupants have need for some drugs is not a good way to make a dollar or two. It definitely left me puzzled. Fortunately after a polite "thank you, but not tonight" we were all left to go back to sleep. 

A smooth start to the day had us on the road by 09:00 and we made good time. Our destination today was Dinosaur National Monument. What a place that is. We got a camp site in Green River Campground - critical feature was the shade. The temps were up in the triple digits!


The main event of the afternoon was the Quarry Wall where real dinosaur bones embedded in rock were on display. It was AMAZING - to see these dinosaurs from 100 million years ago still encased in the rock. Fantastic stuff. I can only note that plants like me leave nothing in the fossil record - my ancestors will never be famous :-( But here is that wall with hundreds of fossil bones for all to see:



Next up was Split Rock Mountain - this view looking south shows our camp on the bend in the Green River (I'm pointing at it with my index pickle). This river slices Split Mountain in two!

And here, looking north, is that a Split Mountain. I shan't tell you how this happened; I'll simply let you know that if you visit this park you'll find out all about it. Truly amazing.

Although somewhat despondent at the lack of Pickle fossils I was very impressed that the Fremont People who used to inhabit this area had got some pretty good drawings (Petroglyphs, I think they're called) of the local flora and fauna - and it sure looks to me like they had some knowledge of Pickles. Check it out - you can just tell that that's one of my long lost ancestor's on that rock, no?

Of course I let my drivers in on the action. Here they are, a few feet away from my ancestor:




And that's it for today - tomorrow we're up SUPER EARLY (06:00 on the road) to get to the top of a ridge and have our breakfast in the cool with fantastic views. I'll let you know how that one goes!




Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 7, 2021 at 5:20 AM

    I am enjoying the narration from Mr Pickles, with some illustrations from your resident artist!! It could turn into a book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mrs CornichonAugust 7, 2021 at 3:55 PM

    Glad you are having fun on your journey towards the East Coast and that Mr Pickles isn't suffering from the heat. Keep him cool as a pickle, because we all know that a pickle is a cucumber with experience.
    Thank you for sharing your adventures.

    Safe travels,

    Mrs Cornichon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mama Sour PicklesAugust 27, 2021 at 8:26 PM

    “Index pickle”. Love it.
    Everything seems very exciting. Especially of course, the ancestor on the rock.
    Thanks for letting us couch potatoes in on a bit of adventure!

    ReplyDelete

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