Dinosaur Valley

Last weekend we went to Glen Rose and Granbury for a little weekend vacation. The main places we visited were Dinosaur Valley State Park, Granbury Lake, and Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. 

One of the two large dinosaur sculptures at the entrance to Dinosaur Valley State Park. The kids were sad they couldn't climb on it. 

Those are real dinosaur footprints in the water behind Sabrina. They say that being underwater helped preserve them because rain didn't pound at them, there is not a rapid current wearing them down, and they don't get broken apart by ice since they are deep enough the water won't freeze.

Sabrina and Clark also enjoyed wading around in the water. It was a little over 90 that day I think, so getting our feet wet was nice.  

We stayed in a little cabin outside of town. The kids really enjoyed seeing this moth that blended in so well with the cabin.

This is the lake at Granbury. It is down about 11 feet right now, so it wasn't much for swimming. The walkway behind the kids normally is about a foot above the water I reckon from the water marks on its poles. I guess the drought in this part of Texas isn't quite over. 

The beach was nice even if there wasn't much water. They had sand brought in from San Padre Island, and it was so smooth. We tried building a little sand castle, but Clark the destroyer kept crushing what we put up. After the beach we went and ate lunch in the "historic" downtown Granbury. They claim that John Wilkes Booth escaped capture, took on a false name and was a bartender there for a while. What a claim to fame! 

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center is a place you drive around in your car and see bunches of animals roaming around. You have food you can throw to them, but lots of people were feeding them directly. We were good tourists and followed the rules. Some animals sort of blocked our path like they were upset that we weren't paying the toll. This red deer here stuck his face right up against the window waiting to be fed. One red deer we saw later seemed to have nibbled a boy's hand - his hand shot back in the window and it rolled up and the car drove off and didn't feed any more deer directly after that.

This is the backside of a giraffe that stuck its face in Sabrina's window waiting for food. You were allowed to feed the giraffes by hand, but we didn't know that at the time. I think Sabrina was too nervous to feed it directly anyway. 

This was our little cabin. 

The kids enjoyed sitting outside on the rocker, despite the heat.