Dinosaurland!

Leaving Provo, we headed for Vernal, UT, also known as Dinosaurland due to the great number of dinosaur fossils located in the vacinity. Our first stop there was the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park, which is actually a museum, rather than a park. There are some wonderful examples of dinosaur fossils here, including many that you can touch.

Here you see a partially preserved skeleton of a stegasaurus. As they are excavated, the bones are "packed" in plaster to preserve them intact for their trip back to the lab. In this case, they've been put on display. At the top of the photo are the plates that run along the back of the stegasaurus, which helped them answer the question of whether these occur in pairs or are offset.

The front half of a stegasaurus skeleton. Notice that the answer to the question about the plates along it's back is that they are offset.

And here is the back half of that same skeleton. There are actually spikes at the end of his tail that aren't visible in this photo.

An allosaurus skeleton. Think of it as kind of a mini T-rex.

In addition to specimans inside from a number of geographic time periods, they have a sculpture garden outside with life-sized specimans of dinosaurs and other prehistoric mammals such as this wooly mammoth. This one was our favorite, due to the sheer size of it. Adult mammoths grew to around 14 foot at the shoulder. Evidently, they have to replace the "fur" of this regularly due to birds stealing it for their nests.

Matt poses by the tusks to give you some indication of the sheer size of it.


Rob had an entirely different take as he posed by the back end. Somehow, I have a feeling that it would have smelled no matter what end of it you were at.