# Dinosaurs and Petroglyphs and Bears, Oh My! Utah & Colorado trip



## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

My work took me to Denver for a meeting. After the meeting, I took some time off and drove out to the Utah/Colorado border to see dinosaur fossils and some other things....

They have a big blue bear ornamenting the Denver convention center. Telracs asked for photos, so here he is!



















On my arrival day, before my meeting started, I had time to visit the Denver Art Musem. Here we have a roomful of classic furniture, a tiara, and a room screen showing a garden party! This style of screen was all the rage in Mexico about 1700.




























Yesterday my meeting ended, and I drove out to Vernal, Utah. Today I explored Dinosaur National Monument till a thunderstorm ended my fun early. Photos from the monument soon...

I'm traveling light, so all photos taken with my iPhone.

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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

thanks for my bear pics!


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

Any pictures of what the blue bear looks like from the inside?


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

crebel said:


> Any pictures of what the blue bear looks like from the inside?


Inside a bear it is too dark to take pictures!


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

The Hooded Claw said:


> Inside a bear it is too dark to take pictures!


*SMACK*

Let me try a more complete sentence. Did you take any pictures of the bear's face while you were inside the convention center?


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

The Hooded Claw said:


> Inside a bear it is too dark to take pictures!


Guess it's a good thing I have an Samsung instead of an iPhone, as apparently iPhones dont have a flash?


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

crebel said:


> *SMACK*
> 
> Let me try a more complete sentence. Did you take any pictures of the bear's face while you were inside the convention center?


Alas, no. My meeting was across the street from the Convention Center, and I never cultivated the idea of going just for a photo op.

Arguably, my time in Denver went down the drain. Speaking of which, I really liked the manhole covers on their sanitary sewer system:










But I didn't like it well enough to stand so my shadow was out of the picture! Of course I had luggage in hand walking to the city rail station, so I was distracted.

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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

After leaving Denver, I headed to Vernal, Utah, which shares duty with Dinosaur, Colorado, as the official tourist trap for Dinosaur National Monument. Unsurprisingly, dinosaurs are really big there. In fact, the town was under attack by this huge pink dinosaur soon after I arrived:










I barely had time to whip out my latest mad scientist invention, the Growth Ray, and enlarge myself to a size where I could easily deal with the rampaging saurian.










Actually, this is Dinah, official greeter for Vernal, and she is quite friendly:










Dinah formerly worked for a local hotel for about forty years, but lost her job as greeter when the hotel closed. She got a civil service job, and her work station was relocated from the hotel to the East edge of town.

There are numerous other dinosaurs around Vernal, but I didn't see any others with government jobs.



















Alas, I was too tired this evening to eat with King Tut and his dinosaur. Went for quick and easy at Burger King.

And this is my favorite of the working dinosaurs:










More in a day or two!


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah_the_Pink_Dinosaur

Here's the full scoop on Dinah. They had another statue of a dinosaur in a bikini, but even I have some standards on what I'll photograph...


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

NogDog said:


> Guess it's a good thing I have an Samsung instead of an iPhone, as apparently iPhones dont have a flash?


Nog, those flash-only pictures look so fake!


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Nice series.  Thanks for posting the pics!


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## kdiem (Feb 29, 2016)

Good pictures and fun subject matters! It really brightened my day!


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I'm back in Denver from Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and will fly home tomorrow, alas. Here are a handful of pics from the first part of my trip at Dinosaur National Monument. More from home!

Today class, we will learn all about the Stegosaurus....here's a nicely put-together specimen at the museum operated by the State of Utah:










And the next two pics are from the quarry at the Monument, showing how dinosaur bones look before they are neatly assembled:



















Because I'm a nice guy, I'll even give you a diagram showing which bones are where in the quarry!










The photos show roughly the left 2/3 and the right 1/3 or so of the diagram. Gives me a new respect for paleontologists!

I'll be back in a day or two with more from Dinosaur National Monument, plus Indian petroglyphs, and photos of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, which is awesome to see (literally), though tough to photograph. There will also be two more bears, plus totally unexpected things I found on this trip. Stay tuned!

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## harpwriter (Sep 28, 2010)

Very fascinating!  Makes me want to get to this place and see these things for myself!  Thanks for posting and for telling me about it!  And...thanks for not posting a picture of a dinosaur in a bikini, lol!


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

harpwriter said:


> Very fascinating! Makes me want to get to this place and see these things for myself! Thanks for posting and for telling me about it! And...thanks for not posting a picture of a dinosaur in a bikini, lol!


I feel the need to reference my photo thread from a couple years ago: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,191257.msg2700330.html#msg2700330


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Love those shots, Hooded Claw.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

In Vernal, Utah, they have a state-run dinosaur museum with the expected fossil skeletons, such as this Diplodocus who just wants a little information...



















And the museum has a Dinosaur Garden where you can see realistic models of live dinosaurs in live vegetation, though the brick walls and in some cases, traffic signs and signals, detract from the effect!














































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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Too cool.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Entering Dinosaur National Monument. Even when I took this, I noticed the friendly white clouds with an anvil shape forming, and a few hours later, they cut my first afternoon of exploration short with a thunderstorm.










This is the famous Dinosaur Quarry. It actually has two levels, the lower one put you right next to the fossils, and in a couple of cases you were even allowed to touch!








￼

As I did here, with the thighbone of a sauropod. There are about 1500 bones, about 150 million years old! These were deposited parallel to the ground in a flat river bed, but were tilted when the Uinta Mountains rose up millions of years later.










This Allosaurus isn't a big one, but I still don't think I could whup up on him. Unless of course I had a bazooka!










Outside the Monument, I hiked to Moonshine Arch. It looks like it is Moonshine Cave, but if you look up while resting in its shade, the true archiness shines through!



















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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I saw Petroglyphs at the McConkie Ranch in the same area as the Dinosaur Quarry. These date from 100 to 1200 AD. Sadly, little is known of the artists or their culture.





































Like many farms and ranches, the owners have a junkyard of old outdated vehicles. The ranch has been here for a long time!










If you look carefully, there is a carving of a bear to left of center here (I promised two more bears, and this is one!)










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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Too cool.


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