Today we head for Dinosaur National Monument, the Utah side, home of the Quarry Exhibit Hall.  We pass through miles of sage brush plain and make a steep switchback climb up a lush green valley then across Douglas Pass.  This north west corner of Colorado and even more so the neighboring Utah is cool terrain.  Enormous geologic uplift has tilted and deformed layer upon layer of sedimentary rock exposing bands of color cut through by ridges of sandstone.  Maybe not exactly beautiful but certainly amazing.

This end of the monument is all about dino bones.  Some 149 million years ago, a raging river carried and buried bones of at least 10 species of dinosaurs in this one valley.   It is the site of a huge dig that began in 1908.  Like at most digs, lots of bones have been removed and sent to various museums.  The cool thing here, the on-site exhibit is a section of the dig.  A vertical wall of earth with 1500 dinosaur bones all excavated to expose them but left in place, exactly as they were deposited millions of years ago.  One section of the wall still contains a nearly complete skeleton of a Camarasaurus, one of those long necked, long tailed planteaters. It is cool to try to spot all the pieces like a giant puzzle.  Plus, we get to touch actual dino bones.  Very cool.  Check it out.

We make a quick stop to check out pictographs and petroglyphs but save exploration of the rest of the monument for another, cooler time.  There is lots more to see besides dino bones.

We are spending the night in Green River campground here on the Monument.  Most of the sites are among majestic cottonwoods along the river bank. Late in the day clouds are building.  We can see sheets of rain reaching for the ground on nearby mountains along with flashes of lightning.  Occasionally a light sprinkle makes it to the ground here.  It is amazing to watch.  It reminds me of watching storms develop and approach in Nebraska when I was a kid. I still love it.  Just about dark a mule deer browses its way past our site between us and the river.  This is a dark sky park but it’s a bright half-moon and a there are still a few scattered clouds.  It is a beautiful night but too much light to find the Milky Way.  Another time.