Dinosaur National Monument

We've spent two nights here, and the desert is getting me down.  It's been close to 100 everyday, which is no good for me.  Yesterday we spent much of our time in the shade, but today we explored the monument and it's desert eco system.  Holy cucumbers is it hot out here.  Bill took the kids to splash around the Green River over at Split Mountain, but I just wanted some time alone.  So I'm under our shelter (thank you Bill for insisting we get this!!!), trying to convince the chipmunks to just leave me alone! I like seeing the wildlife, but these darn chipmunks are fearless.  

The shuttle to the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument.  It actually did get more full before it headed out, but we were amused that we had it all to ourselves for a couple minutes.  The ride to the top only lasts a couple minutes, but it sure was sweet to feel the breeze!        

The Camarasaurus.  The most intact sauropod found.          

I was amused because behind G is a cast of bones.  They're fragile, not for touching.  The dino bones on the wall opposite this display are for touching.  But I think it's wicked cool (that's my '80s Maine talk coming out) that they let everyone touch the dinosaur bones!             Josie Bassett Morris

This is Josie Bassett Morris' house.  She built it.  She lived in it for almost 50 years.  She kicked butt.  Seriously, she was an amazing woman.  She raised livestock, grew her food, hosted outlaws, took care of a bunch of land and all that goes with that.  So awesome.  But looking back, historically speaking, why learn about her?  What makes her special?  Cuz I sure as shootin' never learned about her when I was in school.  The thing is, stories like hers are important to let us know we can do it.  To remind us that life is tough, but we're built for it, we can take it on and win.  So do I need to remember her name?  No.  But I will.    

Box Canyon.  Which is, indeed, a box canyon.  This is one of two box canyons where Josie would keep her livestock.  The other box canyon is called Hog Canyon.  It was a longer hike, though, and the heat is really getting to me.

Digging in the Past

We've got our first camp location picked out--Dinosaur National Monument in Utah!  We've been before, and we loved it, so it's exciting to get to see it again.  Since we'll be hitting the fossil trails, I thought we'd go ahead and squeeze in the Wolf adventure, Digging in the Past.  I had not originally planned on this one, but it makes sense.  We spent only two days on the adventure, but each day was longer than a regular den meeting would be normally.  My kids are dino-crazy, so they had a lot of fun with it.  I set my two oldest up with the Den Chief training, because I want them to have experience working with younger kids, helping an adult with activities, and practicing the skills of encouragement and generosity.  G is being Den Chief for J, so he worked with me to get all the activities and projects together.  He worked so well with J, encouraging him and showing him what to do.  Beauty in motion, beauty.in.motion.

The picture doesn't quite convey it, but there were two VERY different techniques being utilized.  Care and caution vs. reckless excavating.  I leave it to you to guess which was used by which kid.  

We all like to participate in any fun activity, so we actually had two dino digs going on.  K and NB have decided to be a den, since they're both Webelos age, so they worked together on a dino dig.  It was really exciting to see the imprint from the plastic dinosaurs we used on the plaster.  Everyone agreed, however, that though it was a fun project, we were never doing it again.  They had to clean up after it.  If I were the one who cleaned, they would ask to do it several more times.  Lesson learned.  Thank you, BSA.  Oh, and if other scouts are reading this, my kids ALL hated the layered snack.  It was too sweet and they really didn't like the way the animal cracker got mushy in the jello (we didn't let it sit long enough in the pudding for it to really get mushy there).