Last weekend, there was no soccer game and we took the opportunity to get out of Dodge for a night. We hadn't left home since January and it was a nice change of pace. We chose to head out to Eastern Utah to Vernal. Vernal is in the heart of dinosaur country about a 3 hour drive from SLC. It's not a big place and one night there was plenty of time to enjoy the two major attractions, the Field Museum of Natural History and Dinosaur National Monument. The museum is practically brand new and it's a nice layout and quite a lot to see for the price of admission. They also have a nice outdoor area with large dinosaurs and a fish pond.
After the museum, we checked into the hotel and immediately hit the indoor pool where the kids swam for almost 2 hours! That's entertainment enough sometimes. Good thing it was indoor because spring is still slow to come in Utah. On Sunday, we drove out to Dinosaur National Monument and took a shuttle out to the trail to see some real in-place fossils.
This is an actual fossil, a femur we were told by the Ranger. The kids also got to complete a Junior Paleontologist program and even got sworn in and received their own badge upon our return from the shuttle and hike to the fossils.
We had to wait at the top of the trail for the ranger to come tell us what to look for in the wall of rocks. The kids were entertained by a tiny lizard who captured and tortured a bug larger than itself...ah, cheap entertainment again!
The view from the top was quite glorious, with the Green River in the distance.
So that was our overnight trip to Vernal. It was a fun trip and a nice escape from our usual weekends!
Last weekend, there was no soccer game and we took the opportunity to get out of Dodge for a night. We hadn't left home since January and it was a nice change of pace. We chose to head out to Eastern Utah to Vernal. Vernal is in the heart of dinosaur country about a 3 hour drive from SLC. It's not a big place and one night there was plenty of time to enjoy the two major attractions, the Field Museum of Natural History and Dinosaur National Monument. The museum is practically brand new and it's a nice layout and quite a lot to see for the price of admission. They also have a nice outdoor area with large dinosaurs and a fish pond. 
After the museum, we checked into the hotel and immediately hit the indoor pool where the kids swam for almost 2 hours! That's entertainment enough sometimes. Good thing it was indoor because spring is still slow to come in Utah. On Sunday, we drove out to Dinosaur National Monument and took a shuttle out to the trail to see some real in-place fossils. 
This is an actual fossil, a femur we were told by the Ranger. The kids also got to complete a Junior Paleontologist program and even got sworn in and received their own badge upon our return from the shuttle and hike to the fossils. 
We had to wait at the top of the trail for the ranger to come tell us what to look for in the wall of rocks. The kids were entertained by a tiny lizard who captured and tortured a bug larger than itself...ah, cheap entertainment again!
The view from the top was quite glorious, with the Green River in the distance.
So that was our overnight trip to Vernal. It was a fun trip and a nice escape from our usual weekends!
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