Dinosaur Valley State Park

Camping, Camping, Camping...
we could not wait to go camping!!!

Last week we took a little mini vacation and took the boys to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose for some camping and fun. It was a wonderful time! We stayed 3 nights and 4 days.
It is going to take 3 posts in order to cover the whole trip because I took a ton of pictures!

Here is Micah when we arrived at the park. I was a little over excited about the trip. I had dino shirts for them to wear everyday that we were there and dino pjs to wear at night. We took all the dino books that we have, dino games, and of course, the play dinosaurs!
We watched Land Before Time all the way up there and back too!
I know...I am a little much, but the boys LOVED it!

I think the boys were even more excited because Toby got to go with us. He is such a great dog. He travels great, just sleeps, and then is great around other people. So it was a whole family vacation this time !

We are tent campers. We got a new tent last year and have only been able to use it in the back yard. It is an awesome tent!

It is HUGE!!! As you can see. We all sleep on blowup beds. Wes and I have a double size and the boys have twin size beds. Toby's bed even fits! It makes camping all together really nice. The tent is from Gander Mountain, there is a room divider too.

It also has a front porch area. I really like this feature. We could sit in there if we needed to, but we just used it as a place to take off shoes and store the things that we needed at night. makes for more room inside the tent.

Here are the dinosaurs at the state park. The boys were so excited!
These are not the dinosaurs that made the tracks at the park, but very similar to them.

Brachiosaurus

and T-Rex

And are you ready for the actual prints??? There are footprints from sauropods (Paluxysaurus jonesi) and theropods (Acrocanthosaurus) all along the river. I was very surprised how clear it was and how visible the prints were.

Here are the boys checking out the prints. It was very cool!!!

Pretty amazing, huh? I couldn't believe that I was seeing an actual dinosaur print!

Hiking around near the river. Doing what boys love best, exploring!
Especially their daddy!

The boys had such a great time just being boys. Notice that Sam has no shoes and is covered in dirt from head to toe! Loving every minute!

Poor Wes was the one that had to get those dirty boys clean. They have a bath house with showers, so that was a daddy thing! I think after the night, the boys were pros at taking a shower! Cause at home they still just take baths.

Starting the fire. Wes is our cook the whole time we are there. I have no idea how to cook while camping, but Wes is a pro at it! We had hamburgers the first night we were there.

And of course, Smores for dessert!!!

I LOVE me some smores!!!

So, the first night...I didn't do a very good job of checking the weather because it got VERY cold! I would say high 40's. We were not planning for cold weather at all! The boys had all the blankets we had on them, so Wes and I were freezing! I got up half way through the night and got completely dressed in jeans, sweatshirt, and socks. It was the only night that got that cold. In fact, the nights were perfect.
Here are the boys the first morning. They were so cold!

Wes making eggs and bacon. We eat well when we are camping!

Sam decided to move to the sun and get warm. Pretty smart idea!

After checking out Dinosaur World, we came back to the campsite for naps.
Wes is enjoying his christmas present from me.

Aren't my boys precious? LOVE them so very much!

This is the second morning, we are enjoying scrambled pancakes.
Wes finds it easier to just scramble the pancakes when we are camping.
They taste great with butter and syrup! Yummy!!!

On our way to find more tracks!

These tracks were blocked off so you couldn't get in the water. I don't know how many people obey the tape, but I hope they do...because other wise the tracks are not going to last long.
We talked with another couple that had come for years and they said that a lot of the tracks are already starting to erode and are not as visible as they were 20 years ago.

This of course is a man made dino track...
but still fun to put your hand inside and see the difference.

After we got kicked out of Fossil Rim for having Toby (you will read about that in the next several posts) we decided to let the boys swim in the river.

They wanted to stand where a real life dinosaur had stood!
So awesome!!!

Each of the boys standing in the dinosaur track.

Searching for more tracks

Toby wanted to join the fun!

Found another track...this was a big one!

Micah was scared to stand in the big one.

Even Daddy wanted to stand in the exact point that a dino stood millions of years ago.

This was the morning that we were leaving and they wanted to see the dino at the park one more time. They had such a fun time, but were very tired and ready to head home.

The shirts that they have on we got at Dinosaur World. They are just black and white when you are inside, but when you go outside the picture is full of color when the sun hits it.

We think that these prints were made to represent what the tracks looked like when they first discovered them. The sign next to them just explains how the prints were discovered and how they were preserved over time.

As you can tell, both the boys and I loved seeing their feet inside the dino tracks.

Some of the tracks were big enough for Wes and I to sit in them.

Pretty cool huh?

We had such an amazing trip! Hope you enjoy the other 2 posts as well. I just couldn't get it all in one post, since I took over 300 pictures. I was really impressed and had a great time too. Dinosaurs are usually a boy thing, but I really enjoyed learning about the dinosaurs too.
And it was wonderful being together for 4 days straight!
Thanks Wes for a great vacation with our boys! I love you!