Just a random beautiful Wyoming view out the car window.
After our second night in Cody we were ready to start heading East again. But first, we had to detour a bit South on a spontaneous side-trip that ended up being one of the highlights of the trip for me: The Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis.
The museum is small, but fascinating. We spent hours there and I still had to gloss over much of the info and exhibits.
Geodized bones! Fascinating!
If you've seen Jurassic Park you will recognize these!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
Lots of dinosaur skeletons recreated--all with excellent signage showing which bones are real fossil finds and which were created to complete the skeleton. (It's always important to me to know what is real and what is not--and this place had plenty of real!)
This fossil imprint of ancient sea plants was real! Amazing!
Many of the fossils came from other places in the world, but much of what they display has come from their own archeological digs that are have been going on in the hills around this site for several generations.
So of course we had to take time for the official tour of the archeological site!
This is one of several sites on the ridge where the geological conditions were ideal for fossils. See how wavy the rock "ground" is? It was once the bottom of a lake, and those are the places dinosaurs stepped and stirred up the mud! The places marked in pink are where they have found complete footprints!
It is an active site, so while our guide talked about the site and its history and findings there were grad students slowly working away clearing rock. Suddenly one interrupted in excitement, having just excavated a small tooth, which they made sure to show everyone on the tour.
The absolute best part of the experience happened after we got back to the museum and our guide brought out a box of small pieces of dinosaur fossil--and let the kids each choose one. And since inside I am still the geeky first grader who was fascinated with dinosaurs, who used to learn their names and draw Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus pictures to trade with her best friend Allen after school, I asked the guide if I could have one too. And he said sure.
He thought it looked like part of a rib from a Sauropod of some kind (which are most of what they find there at the site). The fleck of white is White-out from when it was originally labelled by archeologists, but it looks like it was later broken and must have been deemed not valuable. Don't get me wrong--these are priceless, but our guide explained that the Center generates so many really good specimens that they just can't keep everything and so give these little bits out to kids who take the tour. And apparently parents who geek out and are bold enough to ask. But our guide stressed that it is a matter of pride for the Center that no fossils from this site have ever been sold.
And that right there was worth the side-trip for me. I am still geeking out about it. DINOSAUR BONE. MY OWN PIECE OF REAL FOSSILIZED DINOSAUR BONE.
Squeeeee!
So, the Wyoming Dinosaur Center is another road-trip stop I would highly recommend.
More adventures from that day--daring and drastic!--to be shared in the next post.
Thanks for reading!
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