July 12, 2014 (Part Two) The Wyoming Dinosaur Center

The bus returned and into the museum we went.

The museum follows a timeline – from earth’s beginning.  There was so much to see and read, oh my.  The museum is privately owned and there are specimens from all over the world.

I took a lot of pictures and tried to just pick out the ones I found interesting.

Yikees:

Yikees again:

Our ancestors:

Now this is interesting about mass extinction events.

After walking around many of the displays the museum then opens to this huge area that contains the dinosaurs.

Sorry about the lighting but if you look real close, Jimbo takes up the whole area – he was HUGE!

Another great display:

There are only 10 known specimens of this amazing species, thought to be the first true bird, in the entire world. Only ONE of them is on display in North America - and it's at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. 

More dinosaurs and replicas:

Remember Jurassic Park?

RUN!!!

The lab:

We watched part of a movie that talks about the possible cause of one of the mass extinctions.  Very interesting.  I am still amazed that there were five big mass extinction events on earth and we are not sure why any of these happened.

What a great museum!

We had rain off and on this evening so we just hung out.

So what did the cats do all day?

They sleep in the strangest positions – .

Stay tuned for our next adventures and enjoy today.

July 12, 2014 Part One–The Wyoming Dinosaur Center and Dig Sites

(This is in two parts because of an issue I am having with Live Writer – sorry.)

We had a slow start this morning but then finally made our way to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and Dig Sites.  As we were registering we found out there was a tour to the dig sites just starting so away we went.

It turned out to be only Andy and I on the bus that made its way about 3 miles from the center up a dirt road:

The bus stopped right by these wildflowers with lots of butterflies:

Our tour guide took us to one of the sites that was opened about a month ago.  So far this is what they found:

They are mostly hip bones of a diplodocus dinosaur.  They are finding bones upon bones and think that this may have been a river or large runoff that gathered the bones together – sort of like a log jam.

The orange “stick” in the photo below is a marker on where they locate the bones.  When bones are found, these markers are placed and recorded.  They have found many dinosaur bones in this area but not all have been dug out.

The building on the hill is closed for now.  They have found a full skeleton and foot prints and they are in the process of stabilizing them:

This is looking down the hill where there are a few more dig sites:

Some of the bones are quite easy to find and others are not.  The white dots in the picture below are marking bones and bone fragments:

The bulge in that rock is actually a foot print.  For right now they are leaving it there until the hill can be stabilized.

The piles of dirt here are covering a backbone.  When they discover bones and cannot get them out before the winter comes, they will bury them in the surrounding soil to help preserve them until they can get back to them.

We spent about 45 minutes with our guide and then made our way back to the museum:

The museum tour is in Part Two.