While our goals for this trip are to visit state capitals and National Parks, we’ve left ourselves open to seeing other cool things along the way. After leaving Austin, we went to Dinosaur Valley State Park at our friend Becky’s recommendation, and saw what will quite possibly be the coolest of all the cool things we will see.
Dinosaur Valley State Park is the site of real, honest-to-goodness, 100 million plus year old dinosaur tracks. When we were in Mexico, I read about dinosaur tracks being uncovered in Texas, and mentioned to Tom that it would be fun to see them. But, we didn’t realize we would be passing directly by them until Becky told us, so we decided to spend a night at the state park and see not only the newly discovered tracks, but the tracks that are always there and are the reason for the park. Our timing was perfect; August after a very dry summer is the only time many of the tracks aren’t underwater, and while you can see the tracks in the water any time, we were lucky to be able to walk all around them. The “newly discovered” tracks aren’t actually newly discovered, but have just become visible this year because it has been very dry and the river is as low as it’s been since the 1940s, which is the last time these tracks were seen - before the days of cell phones and GPS where instant photos and mapping can happen, even if it rains the next night.
If you want to see more about the park and the history of the fossils, check out the Dinosaur Valley State Park website, or the information on this link: https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_br_p4503_0094s.pdf
Dinosaur Valley State Park is the site of real, honest-to-goodness, 100 million plus year old dinosaur tracks. When we were in Mexico, I read about dinosaur tracks being uncovered in Texas, and mentioned to Tom that it would be fun to see them. But, we didn’t realize we would be passing directly by them until Becky told us, so we decided to spend a night at the state park and see not only the newly discovered tracks, but the tracks that are always there and are the reason for the park. Our timing was perfect; August after a very dry summer is the only time many of the tracks aren’t underwater, and while you can see the tracks in the water any time, we were lucky to be able to walk all around them. The “newly discovered” tracks aren’t actually newly discovered, but have just become visible this year because it has been very dry and the river is as low as it’s been since the 1940s, which is the last time these tracks were seen - before the days of cell phones and GPS where instant photos and mapping can happen, even if it rains the next night.
If you want to see more about the park and the history of the fossils, check out the Dinosaur Valley State Park website, or the information on this link: https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_br_p4503_0094s.pdf
The park is in a river valley, so in addition to seeing the dinosaur prints in the riverbed, there are miles of great trails for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.
