Father daughter dinosaurs or bust road trip

[GroovyGeek]

Left Ohio this morning for a round trip whirlwind tour of the west and as many national parks we can hit in two weeks. And as the title implies we will be searching for dinos on week two. My hopes are to hit some dirt here and there on our way.

loaded and ready to go!
Third state line and we are in range of our first way point. Wis Dells.


Plan is to hit glacier. A few days in ID. Then south to Yellowstone for a day. A day in thermopolis. Then run through bad lands and Rushmore on the way home.

Might want to check the snow conditions in Glacier. I suspect that most roads will be clsoed this year well past July 4th and possibly into Labor Day

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[DUSTYcazOREGON]

Check out https://www.blackhillsbadlands.com/business/museum-black-hills-institute in Hill City SD, for dinosaurs..

YES, there are some great dinosaur museums in South and North Dakota (over eight). We were here last year: Badlands – Home – Dickinson Museum Center

 

[Tiresmoke410]

Thanks for the tip. I did look into that one but the 16 year old minimum age was a non starter. We are going to the Wyoming dinosaur center in Thermopiles WY and doing a one day dig.
hoping to hit the near by off road park while there as bonus for me.

 

[Tiresmoke410]

Since this is more of a road trip journal here are some more ID pics. Man that state is beautiful. And I didn’t see a single potato farm.
Hit lake pend for some sight seeing on a small uninhabited island

And some boating lessons.

after A day on the beach we hit the water again for an afternoon of fishing. She caught it. And several more but wouldn’t hold the fish for a picture!

and a small hike to see the view from above. The lake is the the far background.

 

[Tiresmoke410]

Back on the road. Didn’t want to leave ID but have to head to more sights.

I’ll spare Yellowstone pics. Many more people have taken many more pictures way better than I could. Also. We took hundreds driving the north rim and I couldn’t possibly pic just a few to share.
after leaving Yellowstone this morning we did hit a trial just north of Thermoplis WY. Unfortunately all the rain in the area turned what should have been easy trails into swamps in low lying areas. With no recovery gear on hand. No cell service. And 2000 miles from home we turned around after about a mile or two. did get one good mountain pic from the thermopolis WY area.

would love to hit some more using The buddy system. Maybe next time.
tomorrow is a Dino fossil dig!

 

[Tiresmoke410]

Things went sideways real fast. After a chilly wet night in a tent in Yellowstone it seems my daughter caught a stomach bug. Drive to Thermopolis was fine and so was dinner but The night before the trips main attraction she vomited all night. Had to cancel our planned fissile dig!
We still made it to the museum and had a decent contingency plan that still got smiles. We spent a couple hours in the fossil prep lab cleaning “bones”. That is the upper joint of a camarasauros .

after a private tour of the museum we gathered some souvenirs from the store and went home.
the Wyoming dinosaur center is a great museum. Small but much more interesting than your typical natural history museum.
We learned a bunch of new facts we didn’t know about Dino’s previously. This is also the first time I saw real fossils in full skeletons. They even had a archiopterics fossil. It was on display but in a very beefy safe!

 

[Tiresmoke410]

We made it home! Due to the two day sick delay in thermoplis I opted to drive home instead of the planned mt Rushmore and bad lands return to home detour. Have to hit those next time.
I can’t say the bronco seats are great. But they must be pretty damn good because I drove straight thru from thermopolis WY to central ohio! 1500 miles and 24 hrs non stop.
Here is the trips grand total.

almost 79 hours of seat time in two weeks. Add 5% to the mile totals as I didn’t recalibrate for the black diamond tires. So about 4700 miles total.
MPG total for the whole trip was 21.4 actual calculated. A peak of 28 and a min of 18.7 in the 80mph zones. Not sure how the 28 happened. Likely in a park going 40mph all day.
65 zones were 24mpg
70 were 22 and a little change
75 was 20
80 was 19
Of course I obeyed the 5 over cushion the law will spot us. So add 4 to 5 mph to those speed zones for actual speed.
You can see the trip mpg is close to accurate. I have seen about a 4% error on that calc in the past so this jives with the error caused by the tires.

Learned a couple features I now really like on the bronco.
1. The radio presets for xm Chanels record even when the radio is off but ignition is on. So one can enjoy quiet time or make a phone call then turn on radio and skip dj talk or songs your tired of.
2. I could sinc my phone via usb to get direction narration AND have my kids tablet Bluetoothed so we could listen to movies via the cars stereo. Both would work simultaneously. Very convenient.

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