Day 5 - Grand Junction and Fruita, Colorado

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Thankful that we didn't have to pack up and check out of the hotel today, we spent the day in Grand Junction and Frutia, Colorado. Sleep was not so great last night, both boys had a pretty hard time. This meant we got a later start than anticipated this morning, but still got everything in.
Our main focus for today was Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita. Since this is our "Dinosaur Trip" it was time for us to spend some time hanging out with dinosaurs. The museum had some great exhibits and hands on activities for kids. The boys appreciated being out of the car and getting to explore a new place.
After the museum, we ate our picnic lunch in the neighboring park and headed back to the hotel (the same one for two nights!) for a much needed nap. After a couple hours of napping, we headed back toward Fruita to take a hike around Dinosaur Hill where the world's most complete Apatosaurus fossil was discovered in 1901. The entire fossil skeleton is now on display in Chicago. The mile long hike took about an hour but it offered great views of the area. The light wind and overcast weather provided for a great late afternoon hike. We got Mexican food for dinner in Fruita before driving up into Colorado National Monument for a sunset drive. It was another amazing drive past God's remarkable creation! When we got back to the hotel, the boys both went down for bed easily so we're hoping for a much better night of sleep tonight. We've got another big day ahead of us tomorrow.

Day 5 Stats

• 1085.3 total miles driven
• 42.4 total gallons of gasoline consumed
• Average 25.5 MPG
• 23 hours, 12 minutes in the car
• No additional state licenses plates

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Photos

Dinosaur Hill
About the middle of this you can see the entrance to the mine where they extracted the Apatosaurs bones

Lizard
Just a colorful lizard along our hike