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After a solid night of sleep, we had a somewhat pathetic hotel breakfast before driving south out of Rock Springs and back into Utah. Our first gorgeous views for the day were of Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery and drove over the dam before stopping at the Red Canyon Visitor's Center to get more information and walk along the rim of the canyon. The park rangers were very excited to see us and give the kids free Smokey the Bear stickers, bookmarks, and balloons. After our short walk along the rim, we had our picnic lunch at the picnic tables in front of the Visitor's Center. Then we started the drive south into Vernal, Utah. We didn't get far before we saw some "wildlife" that wasn't all that wild. A lost dog was running along the road and was very excited that we stopped to help it. We found the owners phone numbers on its tags and called. It was pretty impressive that our cell phones even worked here! We waited a few minutes for the owner to arrive. He was grateful to have his dog back and out of the harm of the road. Once
we were on the road again, Levi took a nap as we drove through Vernal and into Dinosaur National Monument. The original Visitor's Center was built around the amazing quarry. However, the building has been slowly collapsing in on itself because the ground in that area is not stable. They closed the quarry and that area in 2006. They now have a temporary Visitor's Center that isn't nearly as impressive. They are working on plans for a new center and a new (separate) building around the quarry. Despite the less ideal location, Paul enjoyed the ranger's children's talk about naming dinosaurs and he even got to complete a few pages of an activity book to earn a Jr. Paleontologist badge. He was pretty excited about that. We enjoyed the small temporary gift shop too. Unfortunately it started to rain before we left for our planned hike up the hill to see some dinosaur bones still in the mountain side. We decided against a hike in the rain and started our drive back into Vernal. We had dinner at the 7-11 Ranch Restaurant (the original 7-11, the quick mart has to pay them royalties) for some down home ranch style food.
After dinner we checked into our hotel. The hotel is being remodeled and it seems like they barely got our room ready for us. After getting the kids in bed by 7 pm, we stayed up a few hours to work on postcards, photos, and to make alternative rain plans for tomorrow's adventures. Since we're hanging out in the bathroom again tonight and the bathroom sink area is visible from the room, Paul has had trouble getting to sleep. It is now 10:09 and he has been "trying" to sleep for 3 hours. We obviously didn't wear him out well enough today. Hopefully we'll all sleep well tonight. More dinosaurs and more driving tomorrow.
Day 13 Stats
• 2686 total miles driven
• 102.3 total gallons of gasoline consumed
• Average 26.3 MPG
• 56 hours, 6 minutes in the car
• 0 additional state license plates
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Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0316s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb