The Burpee Museum was invited by the Utah BLM to "do a dig" here, and they're very excited at the findings. This is the third summer they've done excavating, and they have public tours going on until the 2oth.
I called the BLM to find out exactly where we needed to go, and I laughed out loud when the guy told me to turn left on Cow Dung Road. And sure enough...
You can't even get to this place without a truck, so of course Todd loved the drive. Brayden and Caleb kept saying, "This is awesome. It's like a roller coaster", and poor Dillon said, "Do you think we should go back home now?"
Brayden and Caleb are looking at one of the bones of a Barosaurus (one of only three barosaurus skeletons to have EVER been found). There's never been a skull found, so they're hoping to find one here.
The bones are very brittle, so they clear as much dirt away as possible, and then wrap it in plaster to keep it together during shipping. If anything breaks off, they have their trusty "paleo-bond" (super glue) to put it back together.
They have found at least six different dinosaur skeletons here, and they think this site will rival Dinosaur National Monument. They are hoping to have more educational opportunities and possibly a museum in the future. I'm okay with anything that creates jobs in this area!
All of the skeletons they've found so far, are young dinosaurs. They are studying the layers of rocks, and the angles that the skeletons are laying to try to hypothesize what might have happened here. They know that there were no volcanoes, and they know that there WAS water, and that at different periods of time this "river" moved at different speeds. It's amazing what they can tell from studying the dirt. Somehow they also know that these dinosaurs traveled at about 3 mph, but they were capable of going 7-8 mph.
I was hoping the boys would change their minds about wanting to be palientologists, but they thought digging in the dirt looked like a great job!On our way home, we caught a Kids Astronomy class at Capitol Reef, and then made s'mores around the campfire in our backyard.
I love summer.
7 comments:
glad you guys had so much fun!
Cow Dung Road is the coolest name I've ever seen! 2nd runner up is Livengood Rd. That street is lined with metal double wides.
That sounds like tons of fun, especially for little boys. I'm not sold on the "3 mph" bit though... how in the world could they possibly know that?
Cow Dung Road that is so funny! Looks like you guys had a great time.
I want to live on Cow Dung Road... how fun would that be to tell everyone your address? ;) You should explore more dinosaur stuff... and come visit us while you're at it! :)
That is a great name for a road. It is right up there with "Chicken Dinner Road" in Nampa. Poor Dillion! I am sure that after all the traveling your family has done to such dangerous places :) He will never want to leave home.
What a fun trip. The first time I met Joe's parents was at the Grand Canyon. The Dinosaur place looks cool too.
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