The Collections

Once upon a time, I had an internship doing paleontology at Dinosaur National Monument. This year, I had cause to correspond this year with the new park paleontologist regarding that long-ago summer, and she invited me to stop by if I was ever in the area. So when I went back for my vacation this summer, I did indeed stop in to meet her.

We had a very nice conversation. She said she would love to arrange a tour for me of the park's collections in Vernal, so one day I went down to see them.

Entering the warehouse was like walking into that hangar at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where crates of mysteries are stacked in rows as far as the eye can see. In this case it was row after row of shelves and tall white metal cabinets. Unlike in a (mythical) top-secret government hangar, I was allowed to take pictures. I did not take notes because it was bad enough juggling the camera. I meant to write the blog entry immediately after, but many things intervened. I am writing it for you now having forgotten most of the detail, like the terrible chronicler I am.

Turtle bones.

So... I have a terrible confession to make. Though I did not one but two internships in paleontology, I'm really more interested in geology aspect of the science, in the reconstruction of ancient landscapes, than in the animals. I suppose I have always been more of a landscape person than an animal person, the human animal included. Unless you count when I was quite young and was gifted a subscription Cat Fancy magazine that I pored over with intense interest.

But even then, what I liked about cats was that you could pet them, not their bones.

So. The man who gave me the tour spoke to me without any condescension whatsoever, treating me as a fellow professional, and reeling off names of various ancient reptiles as if I understood any of it. I nodded along, too ashamed to admit that I wasn't that into dinosaurs. In fact I didn't realize we were going to be looking at so many bones. I was relieved when he pulled these out:

But to my dismay I found they were gastroliths. These are rocks that many animals, including dinosaurs, have swallowed for addition to their gizzard or stomach, to help grind or digest food.

Here are teeth from a thing:

Below, more teeth, possibly from a... camptosaurus? (If they see this, they're going to go back in time and fire me from my internship. Which, by the way, was a summer of looking for tracks fossilized in the sediment, not for bones.)

We are learning that I am not much of a paleontologist. But since I have worked a certain number of hours in fossil preparation (the art of removing fossils from rock and getting them ready for storage or display), fossil prep became the focus of most of my questions. It was about the only subject I could ask intelligent questions on.

We spoke of how the customs of fossil preparation have changed over time. The bone at center, below, has uniform gray areas where it was filled in, to give the bone its original shape back.

This is no longer the favored practice. Now, bones are left as they are.

Here, tiny teeth are glued to the undersides of corks in vials for ease of study:

These bones had housings lovingly carved out of styrofoam and padded with what is possibly toilet paper:

They had a good number of specimens that had been dug up by teams from many years ago, and had been shored up with plaster and burlap and even door screen material to both keep the bones intact and fill them out to their original, unbroken shapes. This is no longer how things are done, and in fact it made me wince a bit to see the bones so adulterated, but the specimens are now so old that some question has arisen of whether they ought to be left as they are, preserved as they are, as an example of how paleontology was conducted in "the old days," rather than being... well, restored to naked-and-broken condition.

This idea, that a thing could last long enough to become wrong and a candidate for undoing, and then last long enough again to become an artifact and a candidate for preserving, has a fascination to it.

But bones were not the only thing housed in the collections. Here are the tools used by paleontologist Earl Douglass, who from 1909 -1924 managed the famous Carnegie Quarry that is now within the boundaries of the park.

The first thing I think upon seeing these is how wonderfully sturdy and useful everything looks, unlike the various plastic tools and implements that fill stores nowadays.

We did eventually come upon some samples of various rock formations within the park. Look how colorful!

That was it for the rocks. But rocks and bones were not the only things the warehouse housed. It also held what seemed to be the largest part of a collection of paintings by Ernest Untermann, Sr.

Untermann was a German-born renaissance man... sailor, author, geologist, artist... who donated many paintings to the Monument. Some of his paintings remain on display in the museum of Vernal, but the rest may have been relegated to the warehouse, presumably due not only to lack of museum space, but to the fact that time has rendered some of his details scientifically inaccurate.

For instance, this painting shows several adversarial species of dinosaur chumming together.

In truth, I liked Untermann's landscapes of the modern-day Monument, and have considered getting a print. But there is no doubt that a few of his paintings probably should not be on display anywhere.

But I've saved the best for last! Before I finished my tour, I was shown the wonder of wonders: the radioactive allosaurus.

Or at least, its cabinet. You will notice that the cabinet must be vented before being "used." This process involves the entire warehouse so it was not performed for me.

Why is there a radioactive allosaurus? Radioactive elements are a common component of bedrock and soils, so it's no wonder fossils end up absorbing radiation. Usually the amount of radioactivity in the rock beneath our feet (or the granite in our countertop) isn't enough to harm us, but sometimes it's more. In this case, the amount of radiation absorbed by the fossil turned out to helpful. The skeleton was originally found in 1990, but the skull was missing. Six years later, use of a radiation detector turned up the skull, and head and body were reunited.

And we can't see them. Given that tragedy, and despite the ridiculousness of the idea, I prefer to imagine them aglow inside their cabinet.

Stay tuned for more adventures in Utah!

The Nearly Perfect Road Trip (Part 3)

See Part 1 and Part 2 of our adventure here.

While in Portland we got to hang out with K.'s best friend and go to restaurants, but I didn't take photographs. On Monday, when K.'s friend had to go to school, we took off for Silver Falls State Park near Salem. This beautiful park has ten large waterfalls and many smaller ones. The differential erosion of multiple layers of volcanic flows means that you can walk behind many of the falls. We hiked a nine-mile loop to see all the falls, and it was one of the most pleasant hikes I've done.

The forest wasn't too bad either.

On our final morning in Portland we went to Powell's Books, which was overwhelming in a good way, and after that to a seafood restaurant. I'd previously realized that, though we'd spent the last few days near the coast, I hadn't taken advantage of the opportunity to get some good seafood. (Having grown up near the New England shore, I find Denver somewhat disappointing in that area.) K. wanted to treat me because she is a lovely human being.

I got a bowl of clams and a glass of sparkling wine, the latter of which took way too much of our attention. The bubbles were issuing solely from the very center of the golden-glowing glass, making it look like a perfectly composed work of art. A sort of royal lava lamp. We took way too many pictures of it but none of them did it justice.

I ate all these clams.

The meal was one of the best of the trip and I was very grateful. And then it was time to turn for home, and make the long drive back through Oregon, Idaho and Utah. But wait, what's this?

Not long after we got onto the highway I saw on my map that we would pass by Multnomah Falls. I was vaguely aware of the name, but (1) thought it was elsewhere, and (2) thought the whole place had burnt down in a fire last year. K. had also been a little mixed up about its whereabouts and/or existence, and anyway our schedule had already been packed; thus the falls hadn't made it onto our trip itinerary. But it was right there, so we pulled over.

The area around the falls had been fiercely protected from the fire and was still intact and open. The fire, which had reached almost 50,000 acres, was initiated by some teenagers who were filming themselves tossing firecrackers into the forest despite a burn ban, admonishment from other hikers, and the presence of the Indian Creek Fire already raging nearby. I was so grateful the falls were protected -- they are truly beautiful and amazing at over 600 feet high. I couldn't even get the whole thing in my wide-angle lens.

It was fun to play tourist again when I thought I'd be doing nothing but driving for the next two days, but soon we had to turn and face the driving. We drove and drove through Oregon (or, well, K. drove while I slept) until the sun set on us.

After dark we pulled into Farewell Bend State Recreation Area, where the gnats were so thick around the lights at the check-in station that we had to hold our breaths while we filled out the permits. In the morning, we woke to gnatless sunny skies over the Snake river just south of where it glides into Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in the country -- far deeper than the Grand Canyon. (To read about my and Katie's attempt to see this remote canyon eight years ago, check out this post.)

We had meant to explore more of Boise than we'd had time to do on the way out, so we stopped there again, visited the state capitol (I needed a bathroom) and had some Thai food and a milkshake. We relaxed by the river we had tubed the previous week; I finally got to take a photo.

In the car, we were admiring this Larabar, talking about how much it had puffed up from the altitude.

Something felt off, though -- I buy Larabars in Denver all the time, and they're never that puffy. (When I went to eat this bar the next day, I discovered it was fermenting!)

We were blessed to be able to stay at Kris and Erin's in Salt Lake City again. We needed a walk after driving all day, and Kris mentioned, "Oh, there's a park up the street."

When we got there we were surprised to see amusement rides, a playscape with a manmade river, and an entire aviary, among other attractions. Sadly, the rides and aviary weren't open. But if we were to delay our drive tomorrow morning...

K. also found this adorable pear.

Catching up with Erin's cats

The Tracy Aviary was the size of a small zoo and was very nice. We caught a bird show and made sure we left no exhibit unseen. It was one of K.'s favorite activities of the trip.

I am wider than a turkey vulture.

After two long days, it was a relief to have a drive of only a few hours to get to Dinosaur National Monument. We had originally planned to spend just one night here, allowing us to take another backpacking trip before our vacation ended, but increasing exhaustion prompted us to extend our stay. Since I'd only reserved one night and the campground was divided into reservation-only and first-come-first-served-only loops, the camp host let us set up in a first-come-first-served site so we wouldn't have to move again the next morning.

This turned out to be great, as when I'd booked there were no reservable waterfront sites. However, we were now able to grab a site with a beach behind it. It even had some pre-built soaking pools.

The day was hot and we quickly changed and got in the water. We couldn't have asked for better scenery. The water was so cold I didn't want much more than my lower half in it, but it was still such a pleasant surprise to be "swimming," yet again -- way back when I was packing for our trip I asked K. if I should bring a suit, and she said "sure," not knowing when we'd get to use them. But with them we had been able to go tubing, take a dip in a hot springs, jump in Waldo Lake, and now soak in the Green River.

We took a little hike after our soak. The cloudy skies parted to allow a gorgeous sunset.

In the morning we drove to the central part of the park to see Harper's Corner.

Beautiful.

It turns out that there's a great little shop in Dinosaur, CO called Bedrock Depot that makes its own bread and ice cream and has a large variety of delicious sandwiches. The gift shop has some interesting items, if you can endure the music, which is a soul-stirring mix of Jesus tunes and John Philip Sousa marches.

We then drove all the way around to Rainbow Park to see the petroglyphs and the colorful, nearly vacant hills and river bends in that part of the park. (To be fair, most of Dinosaur NM could be classified as nearly-to-actually vacant.)

Every time I've been to this area I've noticed a distinctive ranch on the corner of middle of nowhere and God knows where. Surrounded by disintegrating mudstone badlands, irrigation ditches and claptrap shanties, it always stood out for its sheer size and immaculate landscaping. Well, now it has a pool house and waterslide.

?

Back in reality, we finally took a trip to see the dinosaur quarry, which is in fact the reason for the park's existence. It's an uplifted, tilted and exposed bed of rock in which are encased whole dinosaur skeletons.

I'm pleased to see that one the photos I took while working in the park is still being used in an interpretive display (above, with K.).

Our final hike on this exhausting day was a little interpretive trail back to the parking lot. We followed along on the trail guide, which bore the sentence: "Fossils in these rocks include belemnites (squid-like sea creatures), snails, ammonites, and bones of an ichthyosaur (giant marine reptile that resembled a modern dolphin)."

I found that ichthyosaur when I was working here in 2011 -- the first such skeleton ever found in Utah. So, I felt a little bit famous.

Then, back to the campsite, which was as disgustingly ugly as usual...

We had invited Kris and Erin to come camp with us that night and go fossil hunting outside the park the next morning, but as it's a long drive for one night of camping, we didn't really expect them to show up. However, when I woke that morning...

It was a chilly morning, but soon we were off baking under the sun at our fossil site. This was a place to find leaf fossils. Not quite as exciting as dinosaur fossils, but more legal to collect.

One of Erin's finds

A leaf fossil I found, torn and bent

When storms threatened, we headed back to the Bedrock Depot for lunch, then -- you guessed it -- back into the river.

That evening, K. and I went to the night sky program. Dinosaur has some of the best night skies I've ever seen, so I was hopeful. And it was very nice -- the ranger pointed things out with a laser pen, they had telescopes set up for us to look in, etc. There were shooting stars. But the highlight of the evening came later. I wanted some photos of the night sky, so I left the gathering and wandered down the road into a disused section of the campground. It was utterly black. I lay down on the warm asphalt and took some photos of the sky:

There is both a plane and a satellite in this one

Here is the milky way

I went back to get K. and we lay with our arms around each other, in our own little world with the big black sky all to ourselves. 

In the morning we had to say goodbye to our beloved river beach, and head toward Steamboat Springs, the final stop on our vacation.

...with a little delay due to cow-herding.

We pulled in at Yampa River State Park and I found I'd happened to reserve the only campsite that had midday shade. Perfect for a nap.

This is absolutely the nicest landscaping I've seen at a vault toilet.

We hiked to Fish Creek Falls again -- we'd been there in winter, and I was eager to see it unfrozen, at full force -- but it was really just a trickle. It was the end of summer.

Our real mission here, though, was to see sandhill cranes, which use the Yampa Valley as a staging area for their migration. After driving around some recommended areas for a while we finally spotted some, a ways distant in a field. I saw a little bit of a dance (they dance more in the spring) and we could hear them croaking.

Taken through K.'s monocular

Croaking:

The other scenery wasn't bad either.

Back at the campground, it was our final night. We explored a tepee on the premises and built a nice fire.

It was an interesting night. When the sun went down, the screaming started. Some animal was screaming from the trees, one call followed by another in a different tree, then another. It sounded rather like a canned scream from a horror movie. (Research reveals this was possibly barn owls.)

When we got in the tent I noticed an earwig and flicked it out. Because I don't like earwigs, I then made K. help me search the whole tent to see if there were any more. And I was validated because there was another one! Feeling safer, I settled down to sleep.

But I kept awakening during the night because something was tickling my leg. My gut told me that this was also an earwig. My head said that it was just my paranoia making me itchy. I scratched it and went back to sleep, but it woke me up again. I went back to sleep and woke again. Reasoning that if it was just paranoia I would feel itchy everywhere, not just my right leg, I turned on my headlamp, opened my sleeping bag and took off my fleece pants, inspecting them. Nothing. I went back to sleep, trying to ignore the tickling.

When it woke me up yet again, I quickly crushed my fist around a wad of pants, feeling a hard lump inside. My headlamp revealed a crushed earwig. I HAD BEEN SLEEPING WITH AN EARWIG IN MY PANTS. So, I guess I can survive anything now.

K. never woke up.

We went out to find more cranes in the morning, and got a few shots of them flying.

Our drive home took us past State Forest State Park, which is supposedly the best place in Colorado to see a moose. I have been here three times and no moose. We did, however, see that summer was over -- at least, in this neck of the woods:

And then -- a moose!

That morning I had made K. promise me that we would still be on vacation even though it was our last day, and we would still be in the moment and do fun things. When we stopped at a campground to use the restroom, she climbed an apple tree to pick apples (which she later made into an apple crumble). We stopped again in Fort Collins to look around and get some ice cream.

From there it was one more hour to home, where the unmowed state of our lawn allowed us to realize we were cultivating onions.

The end.