Living Animals and Extinct Dinosaurs

First, I want to say that my husband rocks; he dropped me off at Starbucks just so I could have some quiet time, drink a mocha and catch up on our blog. That's love. :) Anyway, we left Estes Park a few days ago. Marshall has been getting us up at sunrise almost every morning so that we can get a good start to the day and stop driving before dark. I don't love the early mornings but totally agree on the reason for starting early. However, we saw so many animals at dusk and figured we'd see a bunch in the morning, that we got up even earlier. We ended up getting to the park right around sunrise and it was worth it! First we saw a yellow-belllied marmot that was actually awake (see inset). Then we saw a whole herd of elk.

Elk!

Buck Elk

We saw a ton of animals on the way out of the park, so the early wake-up was worth the subsequent tiredness. The scenery quickly changed and I was really surprised by western Colorado. It was much more sparse and desert-like than I expected. I wasn't as much a fan of western Colorado and eastern Utah compared to the mountains. We saw a lot of this for the rest of the day and it got quite hot:

I was a bit crabby and over the drive by this point. The early wake-up and hot weather just weren't conducive to a fun drive. However, there was a saving grace in the midst of this drive: Dinosaur National Monument. We saw dinosaur bones! So cool! The bones are actually still in the rock and a building encloses the hillside to protect them from the elements. It wasn't a huge museum but worth the stop.

Entrance to the park

Some of the bones with a clear shot of a skull

My best T-Rex impression

We ended the evening in Park City, Utah and absolutely fell in love with it. It was gorgeous and back to cooler temps. We found a hotel at the last second that had a pool and hot tub. More swimming, soaking, and even a bit of time in the steam room. We were so tired that we ordered room service for dinner and loved every second of it. I even got some HGTV in. We thought we deserved it after a pretty long day of driving. Very good for the soul.