Dinosaur Land

Our big camping trip of the summer was to Dinosaur National Monument.

 It was so wonderful to go back there again. We had taken Mitchel and Max when they were really little, so it was fun to come again with all of them and see all the new things they had done. The visitors center was totally brand new with lots of hands on things for the kids.

 Then we rode the shuttle up to the quarry to see the "wall of bones." It was amazing!

 The trip also included some hikes and lots of petroglyph spotting.

 It was really hot while we were there, so we found this secluded spot by the Green River that had a "beach" and refreshing water to swim in. It felt great and we had a blast splashing around surrounded by beautiful scenery.

We had to visit the Dinosaur Museum in Vernal Utah. There are lots of hands on things for the kids to do here and lots of information. We felt much smarter after visiting!

Of course we earned another Jr. Ranger badge on our trip. This is always my favorite part of any camping trip because I feel like we not only had fun, but we learned a lot too. I'm grateful to have children that love learning and see the value in it.

One bummer about this trip is that we couldn't have any fires, which meant no smores.  The other bummer was that on the way home, in a small town called Fruitland, our car broke down. Some part in the engine made us loose all our coolant and our engine was totally overheated. We pulled over in the middle of nowhere and didn't know what to do. After a quick prayer, the most wonderful and kind older couple saw us and pulled over to help. They had a big truck and so we unhooked our tent trailer and hooked it to their truck. We then found a little store to park our car in while a wonderful mechanic came to look at it (this was on a Sunday even.) After an hour or more, it was determined that we couldn't drive our car home. This wonderful couple offered to drive us where ever we needed to go and tow our tent trailer! We decided to go into Heber where my Dad would be able to come and pick us up and take us home the rest of the way. Thank heavens for the angels Heavenly Father sends to help us! What a generous, loving, kind, Christlike couple they were! We were so grateful for their service to us that day and I don't know what we would have done without them. So it turned out to be a wonderful trip with lots of prayers answered and lots of lessons learned.