July 11, 2007

Wednesday July 11, 2007 - St George, Utah

This morning we boarded the bus for another trip to find dinosaur tracks in the sandstone. There were a lot of the same kind of dinosaur tracks, and the surrounding stream bed was interesting for Braden to explore. There were sage brush, ephedra (Mormon Tea), invasive cheat grass, and snake brush, among the many desert plants in the area. Both sites we visited , yesterday and today, were not conducive to some of the grandparents walking down the sandy hill trail to the sites. They walked part way, or stayed with the bus. The walk was not far. Then it was back to the Inn for the pool fun until lunch back at Dixie College. The food is really good, and all you can eat. We dined at the student "Red Rock Cafe" cafeteria, and had a large variety to choose from - just like a shopping mall food court.

Back at the College Inn we had some interesting "hands-on" activities with the paleontologist - one was making a time line throughout the length of the College Inn hallway to show the relation of the different types of dinosaurs as they came and went through millions and millions of years. It was enlightening. Then another activity was to make "footprints" from dinosaur lizard foot moulds with Crayola white moulding material. Braden got creative and was the only one to think of fashioning an entire dinosaur - everyone was quite impressed. The kids also traced outlines of various dinosaurs.

The next event was another meal!!! Seems like we eat every time I turn around. The meal was at an "all you can eat" restaurant called "Chuck-a-Rama" - everyone thought this was the favorite place of all to eat. Even though we were so full we could hardly wobble, we went on an early evening bus tour through beautiful Snow Canyon State Park, northwest of St. George. It has been the site of several Hollywood movies. We stopped at one place where we could see the Mobey Marbles - round and magnetic marble sized balls of stone that kind of popped out of the sandstone. After our return we had to pack up for the departure to Zion Canyon tomorrow, but that didn't stop the kids from swimming again until the pool closed.