Day 17

Day 17
We scrambled out of the employees living quarters of DNM at 10AM and were instructed by the finest park ranger to check out a trail two miles away, the “Sound of Silence.”

This trail was truly silent, mostly because it was a pathway in a small gorge and also both sisters were parched. It was a three mile DESERT hike and a certain sister forgot water. Water in the desert, (for those who failed elementary school) is vital.

After surviving on cacti water, we met up with Lindsay and went on the Fossil Discovery Hike. She tried to fool us into believing that the earth was over a million years old! Maryanne socked it to her though. VIDEO!

(This video is sarcastic and offensive. Sorry, but we believe in a combination of science and religion and enjoy mocking both.)


On this hike, both sisters found fish scale fossils over a 100 million years old! We thought it was brilliant, but this is an everyday occurrence there, so no one else felt we merited celebration or monuments in our honor.

Like it’s name implies, we were able to see all types of fascinating fossils in the rocks! Clams, turtles, massive dinosaurs, etc! AND WE SAW A LIVE PRARIE DOG!

After this exploration, we went on a car tour of the park. This is designed so you can drive to 15 locations, get out of your car and do short hikes, (ranging from 50 feet to a few miles) to pristine locations. Important events:

1) We found animal tracks on the shore of the Green River and thought it was a mountain lion, so we made noises to intimidate any creatures. We later learned these were dog tracks.

1) We also saw pictographs which are old Indian drawings, about a 1000 years old! These were incredible! Some were really massive and hundreds of feet up!
2) There was a massive rock shaped like a turtle or skull, depending upon your childhood.
3) The tour concluded with a cabin of a homesteader in the 1930s. Josie was a feisty woman who lived her idyllic 19th century life during the 20th century and had went through five husbands! I love her!!

That night Lindsey and one of her colleagues took us deep into the Monument to see some covert pictographs! These were tremendous and some disturbing. There was one that could be interpreted as one person carrying the body of a recent murder victim.

Then it was back to the coffee shop and soon to bed! We officially sanction Dinosaur National Monument!