Day 7-Friday, June 19th, 2009 - Finding Cow Dung Road, Bones and Goblins; Oh MY!!!!!

Day 7-Friday, June 19th

Leaving Antelope Valley RV park in Delta as the sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, we headed toward Hanksville, Utah in search of the local BLM office and Cow Dung Road we drove once again through some of the most amazing and awe inspiring roads Utah has to offer. If you want to feel closer to God and witness some of his amazing handy work, take a drive through this part of Utah. The presence of God is all around!!!!

Arriving in Hanksville, we quickly find the BLM office in this town of around 800 people (smaller than Centerville, Texas). Randy and Aaron enter the office and a lady originally from Liberty, Texas (as I said previously, its a small world!) . They tell her that we are interested in finding the dinosaur dig site that the Illinois, Burpee Mueseum is working at currently. She tells them we must find Cow Dung Road and travel down this narrow, winding, dirt road 7 1/2 miles and then the site will come into view. She tells them to park the RV in their back parking lot and to take little H down Cow Dung Road. A 35' motor home (with little H removed) won't make it down Cow Dung Road. There are many hills on this road in which we would high center as Robin Williams did in the movie "RV". Not only that but the road is very narrow and has sharp curves that near 180 degrees.

Quickly we unhook and head toward this hidden road. Turning on to Cow Dung Road we realize our friend from Liberty was right. The road is truly amazing and seems fit for only 4-wheel drive vehicles such as little H. Up high hills, around sharp turns, over grand canyon like holes, around rocks, around bolders, slowly we go toward the dino. dig. Looking at the volcanic rocks and boulders that dot the landscape, sandstone, petrified wood we are once again left breathless by what Utah has to offer.

Traveling about 30 minutes down Cow Dung Road we see some tents set up in the distance along with some little red generators dotting the landscape. People clad in light weight, long sleeved, long pants light colored clothing carefully using hand tools to extract dinosaurs. We park in an area consisting of loose sand surrounded by sand stone formations and volcanic rock.

Sheila from the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Ill, greets us with a small and asks us to sign in. We meet a friendly elderly gentleman there alone from a nearby city in Utah. He tells us stories of mountains silhouted in the background (The Henry Moutains). He is a retired coal miner who professes that he did not pay much attention in school to history or science and is now trying to make up for lost time. He tells us of a trip he is planning to take to Alaska. He shows us pictures of a completely black elk he found once while traveling.

As a few more people join our group, Sheila leads us to an area to area to teach us some geology and to give us a history of dinosaurs and what changes have been made due to recent discoveries. Shortly we would get to witness an allosaurus and brontosauraus (spelling...remember I have a creative spelling degree) being extracted from the ground.

Scientists at this dino. dig discovered 60to 70 new bones this spring including what appears to be a 20 foot long neck bone discovered around June 7th. The thinking is that this BLM site on Cow Dung Road near Hanksville could be a large and important source of bones in the coming years. The scientists are quoted as saying that "in some places, you can't work to remove one bone without finding four or fice more". They believe the site will be a rich source of fossilized specimens for at least a decade.

Scientists hope the mix of dinosaurs, trees and other species in the area will help piece together what the area was like 145 to 150 million years ago. Check out their blog at http://blog.burpee.org/ it is very interesting, especially to all of my science friends out there....and you know who I am talking about! ;)

Sheila led us up the mountain to an area where Josh was working to remove some bones and had already jacketed others to be sent back to Illinois. We moved over to where Megan and Katie were digging and jacketing bones for travel. All of us agreed that this is one of the best parts of our trip.

Leaving the dig we traveled back down Cow Dung Road, stopping along the way for some photos and for some rock handing. This is BLM land and rock hounding is allowed. In fact the scientists from the Burpee museum are worried about looting of the site when they leave to go back to the lab in Illinois. I found an awesome piece of petrified wood along with some great agate and volcanic rocks. Randy was excited by some hills and decided to do some off- roading.

Picking up the RV we head to Goblin Valley State Park hoping to find an RV site for the night. The Utah State Park phone system was suffering from technical difficulties the entire day so we could not call to find out if there were spaces available. Arriving at the park we see signs saying that the campground is full. We visit the Visitors Center and ask about additional camping options. The rangers suggest we travel down a dirt road into BLM land and pick a spot.

Adventuring down a dirt, bumpy road again with the RV we eventually find a great, secluded, scenic site. We have our own little enclave in which we can park amidst the sandstone and mud formations with our own personal goblins nearby. Boon Docking is incredible! Hiking along we encounter a mud mountain just begging to be climbed. We climbed it very carefully and came down it even more cautiously. I opted to slid down on my butt on a portion of the decent. Willie reluctantly descended the mountain.

We found tracks while out on our hiking adventure and followed them for a while to see what we might find. It was obvious that the tracks were of some type of deer or antelope. There were at least two adults and at least one baby based on the size of the tracks.

The number of stars you can see without the light pollution of city life is incredible! Just imagine how much more is out there that we can't see even boon docking in Central Utah.

Aaron fixed a wonderful spaghetti dinner and both children treated us to cleaning up on their own. That was one of the best treats. Randy and I got some much needed alone time and did a little hiking on our own.