Dinosaur National Monument (part 2)

After two wonderful months in Colorado, on September 1st, we entered Utah.  Although we were sorry to leave Colorado, Utah is an RVer's paradise with 2/3 of the land owned by the federal government and, therefore, public land.  That's a lot of beautiful country to see and appreciate.

First we visited the western, or Utah, side of Dinosaur NM.

We were greeted by this fellow in front of the visitor center, which Ron noticed had a similar shape to the cliffs behind it.

 
In the summer, a shuttle runs you up to the main attraction.  This building protects a wall of dinosaur bones from 149 million years ago.  The quarry exhibit hall was opened in 2011 after the previous building was deemed unsafe and closed in 2006.

When I first saw the dinosaur quarry about 10 years ago, I was convince it was fake.  I'm such a skeptic.

The reason why there is such a concentration of bones is because this was once the bed of an ancient river.  When a long drought killed many dinosaurs, many of them expired in or near the dry river channel.  Subsequent rains and mud buried the bones and created this phenomenon.  Between 66 and 2 million years ago, a great uplift occurred and pushed the former riverbed to its current 60 degree angle.

It's truly an amazing sight.

We even touched a 149 million year old dinosaur bone.  What a thrill.

They also have some replicas and a really cool mural.

Later we drove around and admired the colorful landscape.