Dinosaur Valley

Blog post for March 28, 2015 -

We are currently in Cleburne State Park because when we went to book a campsite at Dinosaur Valley State Park, home to a Texas geo-site, there were no sites available - even though it is after spring break. Cleburne State Park is only 20 miles from Dinosaur Valley so we were okay with the alternate. Wanting to see a “fun” geo-site, we drove over to Dinosaur Valley this morning to show Mr. Spock some dinosaur tracks and to take a hike.

Nine-year-old George Adams stumbled across strange three-toed tracks that looked like prints of a giant bird in a tributary of the Paluxy River in 1909. During the days of the dinosaurs, this area was a large shallow sea with beaches, lagoons and coral reefs. The shells of crustaceans that lived in this sea left calcium carbonate deposits that created the special “limy” mud that preserved the foot-prints of the dinosaurs that roamed the area browsing on the large tropical palm and conifer trees along the shore. 

The three-toes theropod prints probably belong to the carnivorous Acrocanthosaurus, a smaller relative of Tryannosaurus rex. As scientists were researching the riverbed in 1937, they discovered a large sauropod track, the first distinct prints ever found in the world. They look like a brontosaurus.

From a exhibit in the Visitor Center, this is what the two dinosaurs looked liked.

And these two also left tracks.

Many of the prime tracks were excised from the riverbed and taken to the American Museum of Natural History. Here is a track in the river that remains. 

We took Mr. Spock to show him two more sites, this one in the river…

and this one along the side the river.

Here’s the track of a theropod…

and this is one of a sauropod.

In the exhibit, this is a mold of the tracks.

When we began our hike we soon found out why the campground was full this week-end.

As we were hiking up a somewhat arduous trail, along came mountain bike rider after mountain bike rider. Maybe 75 or so passed us going up a 2.6 mile trail.

At the top of the trail, at an overview point, we met these two riders. They are parents of some of the riders who are participating in a mountain bike race that will be held on Sunday. Today the trail was open for a trial run and these guys were supervising a group of mountain bikers from the Dallas area.

This is a big race with age groups which reminded us of swim meets .This field will fill up this evening with campers who will participate in tomorrow’s race. 

The park displays two gigantic life-size fiberglass replicas of the tyrannosaurus rex and apatosaurus that were built to exhibit at the New York City World’s Fair in 1964-65 and donated to the park in 1970. Since I worked at the World’s Fair in 1964, I probably saw them there.

The ferocious T-Rex.

Driving out of the park, about a mile down the road, was another museum - the Creation Evidence Museum. We didn’t stop as it was closing when we drove by.

The museum was also advertising a performance held in September and October.