Hotel Camping

We joined the camping group we've recently latched ourselves onto for a weekend of Hotel Camping in Glen Rose, TX. It's too darn hot to camp in Texas in June, so a stay at the Dinosaur Valley Inn seemed in order. Mosquitoes, chiggers, sun/rain, heat, humidity, snakes, etc...just couldn't hold a candle to the free popcorn, nacho bar, arcade, and most wonderful hotel gift shop the kids had ever encountered. Our weather problems were not so much the heat and sun as they were the rain and rain and yet more rain. Considering the amount of precipitation that fell on that region this weekend it is a miracle we were able to get a full day of activities yesterday. Dinosaur Valley State Park is a lovely park and we rode our bikes around checking out the various dinosaur tracks that we could find. The first set on the route could only be reached by climbing down a rocky bank to the river which completely covered said tracks. The knowledge that our lives were solidly protected from the rapidly flowing Paluxy River by the plethora of life-saving equipment near at hand was very comforting. Really, everyone should have Life-Jugs. Forget life jackets and how kids so annoyingly keep outgrowing them. All you need is some duct tape, bungee cords and milk and/or bleach jugs and VOILÅ! a life-saving device.
Not seeing any verifiable dinosaur tracks we rode on to Stop #2. Here we hit the Mother Lode. Fording the river, we were able to see numerous tracks presumably belonging to some Acrocanthosaurus who were hanging out millions of years ago. Note to self: Ford is to cross a river a shallow point. Fjord is a deep inlet of sea between high cliffs.
More riding, more tracks we couldn't really see, but we were all content with the lovely tracks seen at Stop #2. After hitting the gift shop (the highlight of any nature-loving, state park trip, isn't it??) we were able to head back to town for swimming and dinner at Chachi's. Sorry to say I can't give Chachi's a big thumb's up, but the reviews were mixed. Breakfast at the Big Cup this morning was really, really good. It's not often I can remark on how yummy scrambled eggs were...I mean, it's a scrambled egg. How can it be much different than any other scrambled egg? But it was indeed worth remarking.

We had to drive through a MONSOON to get home. I seriously thought we were going to hydroplane off the road many, many times. This was my Father's Day gift to BB...I drove there and back. How lame is that? He's a great dad and he deserves better, but I feel like I've barely been holding it all together the last couple of weeks, so 6 hours of me driving was the best I could do. I promise to do better.

OH, I forgot to mention the Creation Evidence Museum just down the road from Dinosaur Valley. Established to provide a "fair and balanced" look at creation and evolution the Creation Evidence Museum researches and displays scientific evidence for creation. They apparently have solid evidence that men and dinosaurs roamed the earth simultaneously. Personally, I think they found Marshall, Will, Holly and their sidekick, Cha-ka. There was probably a big showdown between them and the Sleestaks and they came across the battlefield fossils.

Fun weekend and another week of summer vacation under our belts.