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Dinosaur Tracks
The sign on the road to point us in the right direction Day 26 – Friday – Hurricane, Utah And a grannnd old canyon it is!
We set off from Tuba City on our way to see three rims of the Grand Canyon (more on that later!!) but decided to make a brief stop to see what had been advertised as dinosaur prints and looked pretty cool in some photos we'd seen.
It ended up being a worthwhile stop! The prints are on indian owned land, so arent particularly advertised other than a painted sign showing the way, and when we arrived one of locals stepped up and showed us around the area. I swear...it looked like the dinosaurs had done a barn dance.
Dean will fill you in on all the details if you're curious (I suck when it comes to science) but there were prints form a whole range of different dinosaurs and they were in solid stone - I forget whether it was a metior or volcanic eruption that set the prints in stone.
So we saw a heap of different prints, fossilied bones, a raptor claw, eggs and not to mention, fossilied dino poo!!!!
After that detour we made our way to
Dinosaur Tracks
Pretty cool huh? Most of the ones we saw were this type the first of the Grand Canyon rims - the most often visited - South Rim. A bit of background here is that when planning the trip we agreed we'd see the South rim and then the North rim as it was up near some other parks we were headed to. And then we figured we were passing so close to the East rim WHY NOT. AND THEN the boys found out about the new skywalk on the West rim (closest to Vegas) and decided they wanted to do that too! (we do that one in a few days time),
Anyway. Before we left, and we had asked dad what the Grand Canyon was like, he said that no words could ever describe it to anyone, nor would pictures do it justice. Well i'm sorry folks, but he was spot on. Im not sure how to go about describing it except to say it is vast, and awe inspiring and truly incredible.
Oh - and while I remember, we even saw a wolf, yes a WOLF just standing on the side of the road!! (sorry no pics!)
So our first stop was the South Rim where we oohed
Dinosaur Tracks
A bigger one, with Dean's foot there for scale! and ahhed a whole heap. We watched an Imax movie there on the canyon which was pretty incredible and made stops at a few differnet viewing spots and visitors centres.
Then we made our way around the canyon crossing the Navajo Bridge (way cool) and along the Vermilion Cliffs Highway. It was somewhere along here that we stopped to take some pretty pictures, and drove off with a piece of road attached/melted to our tyre!!!
We pulled over to see what the heck we had picked up (thumping noises were heard!!) only to find a massive glob of semi melted road/tar on our rear tyre!! The poor boys had to pick it off and after one false start we finally managed to get away!
Again today, the scenery was just amazing, changing at least half a dozen times through the day. I really recommend the drive from South around the East and up North (although, a word to the wise, TAKE A PACKED LUNCH!!!).
As we came close to the East rim we went through a pretty section of pine trees that had recently had a bush fire by the looks of it, and we spotted
Are we in America or China?!
Some of the Grand Canyon land is owned by the Native Americans, and some isnt. The shop we visited that WASNT had these signs plastered everywhere!!! our first deer (more on THEM later!). There's really not much there so we stopped for a few quick photos and motored on to get to the North rim in time for sunset (more on THAT later too!!!).
So as we entered the park at the North end, it was 7pm and we asked the ranger where the best place was to view the sunset. She mentioned a spot but said we wouldnt have time to get there by 7:35pm which was sunset so to go to this other place which we did. Well we arrived at 7:30 and hussled our way down to the viewing deck, only to stand waiting, watching and anticipating for well over a half hour with the sun STILL glaring over the top of the mountains!
Given the drive we still had to get to our hotel, we decided to give up and get driving (this is where the deer come in to it). Well there was enough light for us to be doing a decent speed, except that I guess the deer like to come out at that time of day, so we had to take it easy. Word to the wise,
Cactus Plants
Would you believe this was the first Cacti we'd seen?!!! deer are as stupid as bloody kangaroos - John showed a superb display of driving prowess and managed to miss a massive dumb deer who decided to watch us for a while before deciding to jump in front of us.
It gave us a little bit of a scare, but John did managed to hold it together, and then wondered outloud if it would have sung "Sweet Home Alabama" if it ended up on out hood. (For those that dont get the joke, go back and read the Elk City entry!)
Oh, then there was also the fact that we had sat down at 11am - Dean & I had half a sandwich each and Dean, Jen & John had a piece of chicken each and by 9pm we still hadnt passed anywhere that was open to get some food!!!! Poor Dean had to negotiate at some random motel we stopped at along the way to get me a juice and a brownie as my blood sugar was all over the place!!!!
OH WHAT AN ADVENTURE. We did end up hitting some small amount of civilisation at around 10:30pm (ahhh the golden arches of McDonalds) where we
Navajo Bridge
This place was sooo pretty scoffed down some dinner and set off again. In order to get to the town we're staying in we then had to negotiate Zion National Park and its windy roads in the dark (way to go Jen, her driving was superb!). And we FINALLY reached our hotel at 12:30. What a day!!!
"Dean's Details" –
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garry
non-member comment
dino tracks
i cant beleive .none of these tracks were not made by deano the dinosaur.he he he