Weekend part II

After Dinoworld, we went to all of our favorite part which was also the most affordable part- go figure! We took our picnic lunch to the State Park where there are actual dinosaur footprints visible in the creek. There are two sorts of prints, some from leaf eating dinosaurs and some from meat eating dinosaurs. They called the trail of sightings, the chase, for obvious reasons. We went to the first site, which was only slightly dangerous and had us and my precious small children climbing rough rock, scooting past dirt shoots that ended in the river and over monstrous rock formation, not well suited for a casual stroll. But it was so worth it and the kids loved climbing on the rocks. It was a little nerve racking though when Dominique tried to follow Ivan and a bigger kid and realized she could not reach. I grabbed her when she yelled for me, she was hanging from a rock suspended over the creek. Wild action fun I tell you! I think we had a few extra gardian angels assigned to us for this outing and even last night when Emora got run over by Logan's little four wheeler (she's fine, but was a little stunned, as were we all).

You could really see the prints well in this rock. A sign explained that the prints are so well preserved because they are underwater, that if they had been on land, wind and time would have eroded them by now.

The next site was even more precarious. To get to the best prints in the park, one had to walk in calf high fast flowing water for about 30 yards on slippery rock with deeper pools of water on either sides of the boulders that formed a rough underwater walkway. This may have been a little possible, with another adult if Emora stayed on the side and didn't cross, but to make matters worse, there were tons of people on it trying to cross both ways and although I really, really wanted to try it, I did imagine Ivan or Dominique slipping away from me in the torrent and grandpa wisely advised me that we should not attempt it. Maybe if there weren't so many people he said. I would love to go back with Brian so we could see it again, but time is slipping away, so we'll see. By the time we hiked along the beach and back up to the paved trail, we were very much wore out and didn't even attempt to see how hard or easy the third site was. I wish I'd taken some video here. It was so amazing, peaceful, beautiful and otherworldly.