The Front Porch Swing

[Blooie]

Velociraptor with feathers--- that's important

. We visited the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, CO on our road trip this summer. Pretty awesome place if you ever make it over that way. We were lucky they were short-handed that day so our tour was lead by the lady who pretty much runs everything in there. She made a point that if velociraptors are in the next Jurassic Park that they more accurately represented with feathers. She also said they were closer to the size of a dog.

I don't know if you ever make it out to UT, but there is a place north of Moab (among others in the area) where there are petrified dinosaur tracks! We went there this summer as well. I was so excited. Everyone else… not so much. The boy were just OK with it, but we had just hiked all through Arches NP and it was the HOT afternoon. There are tracks of a brontosaur, some small carnivores and a suspected injured Allosaurus. It's off the beaten path, and we were probably one of 5 groups that visited that week.

Sorry, had to jump in… I'm a dinosaur fan

Adding pics in a sec...

There is a major dinosaur track site just a few miles from here as well, near Greybull, Wyoming. Funny story about that place....a very good friend of mine who was a mapmaker and surveyor, found the spot many years ago, and it became a favorite place for her to go and just sit when she had some heavy thinking to do. She took Ken and me out there once. It would have been hard for us to find because it wasn't marked in any way and the entire area looks the same all the way around you. She went straight to it. Then a few years later there was suddenly a sign that said, "Red Gulch Dinosaur Track Site." Yet a few more years passed and now suddenly there's a parking lot, a porta-potty, and the actual riverbed is fenced off so you can look but not go down there. Here are a couple of pictures of my grandkids enjoying it back in 1997 or 98. Austin and Jamie were 8 and Little Diane was about 3 or 4.




The cutie above is grandson Austin at the RGDTS. Back then you could walk right down in all of the tracks...not anymore. I had some photos of all three kids in the old riverbed but naturally now that I want them these are all I can find. <sigh> Now I'm on a quest to find the rest - not to share them but because I really need to gather all of the ones with Austin in them and get them organized. We lost him 2 years ago in a car accident and each memory is so precious.

There is also a huge dinosaur museum in Thermopolis that is really fantastic. We've taken kids there several times and it's always amazing. They can even work on the dinosaur bones themselves.

 

[Alice28]

That is so cool! We would love to take Gabe to do something like that. This summer we will go to fossil, then if he stays all obsessed with dinos maybe find some other cool places. We have looks up sits with dinosaur tracks and we've seen some on the millions of documentaries we have to watch

. I would love to go and see some of the places. He would freak out!
One day I will go to one of the sites. It would be amazing to see something that has serviced on the earth through so much change!

 

[Blooie]

That is so cool! We would love to take Gabe to do something like that. This summer we will go to fossil, then if he stays all obsessed with dinos maybe find some other cool places. We have looks up sits with dinosaur tracks and we've seen some on the millions of documentaries we have to watch

. I would love to go and see some of the places. He would freak out!
One day I will go to one of the sites. It would be amazing to see something that has serviced on the earth through so much change!

Well, ya got place to stay if you ever decide to swing this way. There are tons of sites out here - one is just 6 miles from the house! We take most visitors up there when they come and they can find belemnites galore! There's also Fossil Butte - quite a ways from the house but well worth the trip - especially since we have to go through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks to get there. Around Greybull is another site, I think it's called the Devil's Kitchen. Plenty of active archeology going on around our neck of the woods. But one of my favorite places is up on top of the Big Horns, maybe a 45 minute drive. There are huge dolomite boulders up there - you can't find a spot on them without a fossilized sea creature in them. Love that place.

 

[perchie.girl]

There is a major dinosaur track site just a few miles from here as well, near Greybull, Wyoming. Funny story about that place....a very good friend of mine who was a mapmaker and surveyor, found the spot many years ago, and it became a favorite place for her to go and just sit when she had some heavy thinking to do. She took Ken and me out there once. It would have been hard for us to find because it wasn't marked in any way and the entire area looks the same all the way around you. She went straight to it. Then a few years later there was suddenly a sign that said, "Red Gulch Dinosaur Track Site." Yet a few more years passed and now suddenly there's a parking lot, a porta-potty, and the actual riverbed is fenced off so you can look but not go down there. Here are a couple of pictures of my grandkids enjoying it back in 1997 or 98. Austin and Jamie were 8 and Little Diane was about 3 or 4.




The cutie above is grandson Austin at the RGDTS. Back then you could walk right down in all of the tracks...not anymore. I had some photos of all three kids in the old riverbed but naturally now that I want them these are all I can find. <sigh> Now I'm on a quest to find the rest - not to share them but because I really need to gather all of the ones with Austin in them and get them organized. We lost him 2 years ago in a car accident and each memory is so precious.

There is also a huge dinosaur museum in Thermopolis that is really fantastic. We've taken kids there several times and it's always amazing. They can even work on the dinosaur bones themselves.

Blooie if you need to restore any of them let me know. And its a very good idea to get them scanned in and preserved digitally.... Film doesn't last for ever especially color.

deb

 

[Blooie]

Blooie if you need to restore any of them let me know. And its a very good idea to get them scanned in and preserved digitally.... Film doesn't last for ever especially color.

deb

Deb, you are so good to me! Thanks!
I have almost everything on my computer now...I'll take an afternoon and just enjoy a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate and scan them in. Then I copy them to flash drives and give them to the kids....that way they have every photo I have and can delete the ones of old Aunt Margaret (my great aunt who was the original photo bomber) or other people they don't know and keep the ones of themselves, the family, and their events. Every birthday they get an updated flash drive. They love it, I love it, and those memories are preserved. I had 2 car seat boxes and 3 Sterilite boxes crammed full when I started doing this two years ago. Now I'm down to a few albums and one car seat box left to do. Problem is I'm so obsessed with taking shots of every cute expression or new experience that I never get caught up as far as the organizing goes. I have hundreds just on my iPhone and iPad. Once I transfer or add photos, they go into a file system. I know I have Austin, Jamie and Little Diane exploring the Gulch, but did I put them under "Grandkid's stories", "Makin' Memories", or Exploring the World"? <sigh> I have over 20.000 pictures on my computer, and hundreds on my iPad and iPhone. I gotta get busy!

 

[perchie.girl]

Woo Hoo the Pineapple express is coming.....

Just three days of rain this week has the hills finally going from grey to gray green.....

deb

 

[vehve]

I've seen some photo organizing software where you can tag the pictures, so you could write who's in it, where and when it was taken, what you're doing, and what's in the picture. That way you can then search through the photos quickly by entering keywords, like "Diane surfing" etc.

 

[lazy gardener]

I've seen some photo organizing software where you can tag the pictures, so you could write who's in it, where and when it was taken, what you're doing, and what's in the picture. That way you can then search through the photos quickly by entering keywords, like "Diane surfing" etc.

That, I want to see!!!

 

[wyoDreamer]

Back to kids and dinosaurs...
My nephew was really into dinosaurs as a little tyke. He was such a cutie, dark hair, big brown eyes and always an impish smile. The big dinosaur exhibit came to the local museum when he was about 4 years old and he was so excited to go see it. They got there and the museum had the volume turned up so loud you could hear the dinosaur roars in the parking lot. The closer they got to the exhibit, the bigger his eyes got and the more scared he got. My sister asked if he still wanted to go in, he was so scared he couldn't talk but he nodded YES! So my sister kneeled down in front of him and told him - if they scare you, roar back at them! He took her hand and they walked in ... little guy roaring at the top of his lungs! It was all he could talk about for months. He is now working on his PhD.

Now back to our currently scheduled topic ...
My family has always used mostly slide film. it was always an event when Dad pulled out the machine and set up the screen. Mom made buttered popcorn and we kids grabbed our pillows so we could lay on the floor.
We have an older scanner - one of the features of it was scanning in photos and slides. I had always wanted to get the slides from my Dad and scan them into the computer. Maybe make a couple of CDs for my sisters. DH mentioned that my Dad told him he would like to get the slides scanned in. He doesn't think he can find parts for the slide player anymore. DH asked if I would mind if we gave them our old scanner if it worked on their computer. well, DUH!

 

[Blooie]

I've seen some photo organizing software where you can tag the pictures, so you could write who's in it, where and when it was taken, what you're doing, and what's in the picture. That way you can then search through the photos quickly by entering keywords, like "Diane surfing" etc.

That, I want to see!!!

Um, like that's gonna happen in this lifetime! The only surfing I do is on my computer!