Dinosaur Bones and Flying Kindles

July 10th and 11th
We departed Vernal, Utah and it promised to be another hot, sunny, dry day in northeastern Utah.  We planned to stop at the western entrance of Dinosaur National Monument, then keep going east into north central Colorado on route 40, ending the day at SteamBoat Springs.
Dinosaur N.M. was even better than I expected.  There is a huge rock wall containing over 1500 dinosaur bones still embedded in the rock.  The rock wall is surrounded by a big air-conditioned building.  Its was fantastic!  This area holds the highest concentration of intact dinosaur skeletons in the world.  There are lots more outside this building if you take a day hike.  It was getting really hot and we still had over 120 miles to go, so we skipped the hike.

Here is the wall as seen from the end of the upper
level.










This is the only known skeleton of a baby stegosaurus.




Bones visible in the rock wall.  Click on the picture to get a closer look.

 Leg bone that visitors are allowed to touch.
Either stegosaurus or camarasaurus

I'm  looking for specific bones by comparing what
I see on the wall to the labelled guide.








We left Dinosaur N.M. and headed east on route 40 as planned, passing into western Colorado.  The scenery had turned to rolling hills covered with sage brush; not much to look at.  I got out my Kindle and resumed reading a Stephen King novel (Cujo).  Just as the story was getting really good, a big gust of wind knocked my Kindle out of my hands.  I looked back to see it bouncing along the highway behind us.  There was no place to pull over, and I figured the Kindle was broken from bouncing off the pavement, anyway.
I was hoping that I could buy another Kindle at our next destination and download my books on the hotel wireless.  This is my second Kindle lost on this trip.  I broke my original Kindle the first week of the trip when I accidentally sat on it.  Kerry says I need to get a strap and hang it around my neck.

Entering Downtown Steamboat Springs

A few hours later we arrived in Steamboat Springs, a major vacation spot. Summer is actually their slow season.  In winter this place attracts thousands of skiers.  There are very expensive  vacation condos all over the mountain.  We parked the bike and took a walk up and down the main street, got dinner, and then retired for the night.  I wanted to go to Rocky Mountain National Park next, but it looked like rain and thunderstorms for that area tomorrow,  so we decided to stay one extra night here in Steamboat Springs, getting the oil changed and resting up for the final leg of our trip.  Sadly, there are no stores
here that sell Kindles.  :(


On July 11th we took a short ride north of town to check out  Steamboat Lake State Park.  Nice park and lake, but all the campsites were full.  After lunch we headed back to the hotel to avoid the approaching storms.  As I am writing this blog, the lightning and thunder have started up, its raining and now there is hail and wind.  We are very happy to be in a hotel room right now.  If the weather clears up by tonight we may check out the rodeo.

Colorado meadow just outside town