The drive to Fossil Point started out heading south from Green River, into the San Rafael desert past miles and miles of gray shale until the more colorful and older geological layers were gradually being exposed.
We have now officially entered the badlands of the Jurassic (and I know this because my handy dandy brochure from the KOA office told me so). But also because we could actually envision the dinosaurs roaming this land.
I could see a brontosaurus drinking from this reservoir.
DinoExpert Jake, however, says it was a velociraptor I saw, and he had the tracks to prove it.
Right after the reservoir is a smaller, primitive dirt road that leads to Fossil Point and the resting ground of many dinosaur bones and fossils. My instructions were to drive 1.2 miles and "park on the large flat area" and "Fossil Point is the rocky outcropping 116 feet above and to the East".
One: I do not know how to set the tripometer in my car, with all it's fancy gadgets.
Two: There are at least half a dozen separate rocky outcroppings.
Three: I need more instructions.
One large flat area: check.
Next my instructions say, "just start exploring the boulders for bones" and "there are some large vertebrae and other bones embedded in some rocks right at ground level." Go ahead, Jake...just start exploring!
No, really, it's nothing like finding a needle in a haystack..trust me.
I doubt this is anything, but it's the closest we came to even trying to force an imaginary fossil.
It looks like it could be vertebrae. no? Oh well, we pretty much gave up before we even started because Joey and the kids kept finding cool rocks, and I was fixating on these itty bitty little flowers that popped up sporadically. This little pink plant was about one inch big, and looked like it was coated in sugar crystals.
This little two inch tall one was another one of my favorites.
They were so incredibly tiny!
After a bit I wandered over to a different rocky outcropping, the tallest one near where we parked, and decided it was Fossil Point and if I climbed all the way to the top I would be rewarded with "enormous casts and fossil bones once belonging to a Brontosaurus, among others."
All I saw from up top was a mini hotwheel car and some toothpicks rock hunting. It was a good workout hiking up that sandy mountain, though!
When we were ready to go we decided to keep going a little further South, and just see what we find.
We found the land got redder, and that we could go on for days...but with no GPS on us, or cell phone reception anymore, topped with the fact that no one knew where we were, we didn't.
We went back to Horse Bench reservoir to climb around it's many boulders and take in different views of the reservoir. I love this body of water, not because it's red, but because it's not even water!
It's solid mud! Trippy, huh? All those ripples in it...drying mud.
A little rock collecting, boulder hiking, lizard chasing, sight seeing, and fly practicing.
It's what Jake does.
Appreciating her life and all the pretty things in it...
That's what Jewel does.
What do you do?
4 comments:
The sugar-tipped plant is gorgeous!
That was mud? I would have never guessed. Great plant pictures!
I love that photo of Jake, but the one of Jewel says "currently unavailable." Did you move it, maybe?
The flowers are wonderful.
What a beautiful place. The colors are so vibrant.
Wish we were there!
Post a Comment