Day 1292

We got up a little after 7 today, did the pet stuff and had breakfast.  There was no hurry getting started today, so we didn't leave the park until after 8.

The first place we stopped was the dinosaur museum.  It was fantastic.  It started out with displays of the earliest fossils.  The exhibits continued form one celled life to primitive collections of cells, to the first plants and animals.  Then they chronicled how these organisms made the leap to land.  Finally they got to the dinosaurs.

Apparently there are very rich fossil beds outside of Thermopolis.  Many of the bone mounts were from there.  There were other mount from around the world.  The most impressive were the Tyrannosaurus, the Archepetryx, and a large plant eater that was 100 feet long.  These were truly impressive animals.

The displays also showed how dangerous veloceraptors were.  They hunted in packs and each one could easily kill a human.  Other mounts included hadrosaurs and stegosaurus.  The explanations clearly showed dinosaurs weren't lizards.  Some had feathers, some had fur, and many were built like birds.  We spent about 3 hours there.

After that the morning clouds had cleared up to a sunny day.  We went to see the shops downtown.  There weren't many, and none were particularly interesting.  Then we went back to the state park to walk Lucy around.  We went to the places we'd gone before.  The lighting was much better than yesterday and I had my camera.  A lot of pictures were taken.

We stopped at Day's Inn to have lunch, but the Safari restaurant wasn't open until 3.  So we had hamburgers instead.  We made a short stop at a buffalo fur store just to see what they had.  Then we took Lucy back to the trailer.

We fed everyone lunch and then left for the town museum.  It was amazing.  They had a large two story building filled with artifacts.  They also had many old photos, some dated in the 1800's.  Most of the exhibits were organized as rooms.  For example a bank, a barbershop, a blacksmiths shop, a family living room, a settler's cabin, and many more.  They even had an old ornate bar that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had drunk at.  We spent a couple of hours there.

When we were done we went back to the Safari restaurant.  We ordered a nacho appetizer and some drinks.  The nacho was so big we could only eat half of it.  A thunderstorm with hail came through while we were there.  Fortunately it was small hail.

When we got home I dumped the black tank.  Another thunderstorm came through while I was doing it.  I sat it out inside and finished the dump after it was over.

We didn't have dinner because of the nacho.

We've made a serious miscalculation.  Memorial day is next weekend, not the following like we thought.  It's not clear that we will be able to stay in Richland.  If not, we'll have to stay somewhere else until the next Monday.  The lady at Richland will tell us if we have a space tomorrow.  In the mean time we'll go to Green River tomorrow, and Twin Falls on Sat and Sun.  We'll shoot there on Sunday and then try to find someplace near Boise to spend a week.