Thursday, October 27, 2016

Dinosaur Land!!

For UEA this year we decided to go where none of us have gone before...Vernal. What may you ask is in Vernal? Dinosaurs! We left after school on Wednesday but the fun didn't really start until the next morning when we visited the Dinosaur museum.










 My favorite....



 Although we had a good time at the museum I was a little unimpressed. I like the one in Ogden better. But the kids liked posing with the dinos.

Then we drove out to Fantasy Island (I think that's what it's called). It's like Goblin Valley only smaller. I thought it was kind of funny that they actually had picnic tables in the middle of nowhere. But it was really nice to eat lunch on!


 Okay....seriously...how do these rock formations happen? They are SO crazy!!





 And there was a random bench in the middle too.


 Nice 'stache, Trav.



 There's the bench, ha ha!
 The kids wanted to try the mustache too.






 Unfortunately, little Jonah got really sick. Like, wheezy, couldn't breathe, mommy was too scared to sleep, kind of sick. We took turns being up with him all night. Poor little guy wasn't eating and was just miserable. It was so sad. But he did sleep pretty well as long as we kept an eye on him.

The next day we went to the quarry. This was one of my favorite parts. It was awesome!

 It was just this huge wall FULL of partially dug up dinosaur bones. It looked SO cool!

 The kids worked very hard on a Junior Ranger packet so they could all officially become junior rangers.
 
Will was the first to complete his packet.


 Here's Will with his official Junior Ranger badge. He was so proud of it.
 Kate was next.

 Josh still had work to do....
 Rach and Josh had to take the oath (Kate and Will didn't have to do that part)
 But all their work paid off and they all got their badges. It was really fun!
 We then headed over to Steineker Park. It was BEAUTIFUL!! Perfect little sandy beach to play on, gorgeous landscape. It was a great afternoon.

 Even Jonah opened his eyes for a minute to take in all the beauty.

 Nice socks, Rach.
 They had their own "cake wars." I told them to make a "cake" that looked like a dinosaur. They all did a great job.


 Josh gets a little crazy in Dino-land.


 There was a little hike right by the beach so we decided to go on it. It was a nice little hike to end the day. We saw bunnies and lizards.


 (and had lots of fruit snacks to keep us alive.)
 The next day we wanted to hike to Moonshine Arch. The sign said "Cars are recommended to park here unless you have 4-wheel drive to continue on the road to the trailhead." Okay...look at that road! There's no way anything but a hummer is getting through! It was a lot worse than what this picture is showing.
 He still wasn't feeling great...

 But we made it to the arch! It was beautiful!











 We had the place to ourselves for quite a while, then a couple other families showed up. This was seriously the best time of year to go. The weather was absolutely perfect and there was hardly anyone there. I wouldn't want to do those hikes in the heat of the summer.
 I had to get a shot of Will's sandy bum.  :)
 He is a really awesome hiker though.
 Then we did a hike to actual dinosaur tracks. The hike was pretty tricky but fun. The kids did really well. We hiked right to the water where they wanted to wade. I didn't want Will's pants to get wet. Ha ha!


 The tracks were a little tricky to make out but they were everywhere. It was SO SO cool! Real dinosaur tracks!

 That bumpy rock in between the boys was one of the best tracks. It's kind of hard to tell in the picture but it was so cool!
 Rach wanted a picture of her leaving the track. Silly girl.

Then it was a long, but uneventful drive home. (Thanks to the audiobook Little House on the Prarie)

Some other highlights from the trip:
-We went to a yummy Mexican restaurant and Josh ordered chicken nuggets. (weirdo)
-We ended up buying a humidifier to help poor Jonah breathe at night. It seemed to help and after being home a couple days is now fully recovered. Now we have a souvenir.
-The kids favorite part was  swimming in the hotel pool.
-Vacations are the only time we can watch the food network and HGTV so we did plenty of that too.
Thanks Vernal....you were good to us!