Mallery Turns Twelve and Hunting For Dinosaur Tracks

                                    Thursday 5/2/2013

Our "Little Princess" Mallery, turned 12 years old on May 2. New summer  hair cut.

According to a chart I saw in a Vet office, she is now 64 years old. She now is officially older than Joe and I.

Her Birthday cake was her dry food in water and I opened up another Prescription i/d, to add to it, even though she did not have any gastrointestinal issues at this time. She enjoyed her Birthday cake!

Later that day she came to me looking like a sheep dog. Our princess would never make it as a show dog. No sooner do I get her hair up and pretty, she usually will gets down and rubs her head all over the ground. She definitely is a dog dog!

Any guesses what this is that I made?

It's home made mustard that I froze, to pull out individually as needed. When you are on a Yeast Free diet, it is hard to find any prepared item that doesn't have sugar, yeast or vinegar.

                                     Friday 5/3/2013

On our way out of the park, we saw the Egyptian Geese under a RV.

I got the zoom on the camera to get these pictures. They have a brown spot on their belly and pink legs.

The bill is pink and black.

On our way to our days destination, this dinosaur chased us down the road. Yicks!

Actually this place is Dinosaur World. If we had our Nana boys with us, we would have stopped to check it out. They would love this place!

Instead we continued down the road to Dinosaur Valley State Park.

The cost into the park was $7.00 per adult. Joe had bought a Texas State Park pass earlier this year, so we got in free. Joe said with this entrance into the park, we broke even with the pass. 

As we drove into the park, I could see some dinosaurs at play. These dinosaurs were once on display at the Texas State Fair.

We drove first to Track Site 1-Blue Hole. The trail to the site is very short, but very treacherous.

After climbing down the hill, we found the track, only because someone had previously been there taking pictures. If they had not been there, we would have never found it. You have to climb over or under this tree trunk to see it.

Joe points out where it is in the water.

There it is, a Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur track. Wow this is so cool! In all our travels, we have never seen a dinosaur track. As a side note, normally I wear these shoes without the white socks. It was a bit chilly this morning so I decided to look like a nerd rather than be cold.!

This is what a Acrocanthosaurus looked like.

Looking up the Paluxy River, we could see a father and his kids wading in the water. Burrr!

This is the rock we had to climb over to get back up the trail. Joe had to give me a push to get me up and over the rock.

Back at the parking lot we heard some banging sounds from the dumpster.

Joe took a peak and found this little guy had climbed in for lunch, but was now in a pickle.

The trail down to Site 2 Tracks was much easier to transverse, though Mallery was not too keen on hopping from rock to rock.

Dogs are allowed in the park. We decided to visit the park on this day because it was cool , which Mallery prefers.

After we crossed the stepping stones we came to another area where there were dinosaur tracks.

Mallery stands in front of one to show you the size of the track.

In another area, we see saw more tracks.under water.

Millions of years ago, there was an  increase in volcanic activity. The resulting heat caused the sea floor to rise into the lowlands of Texas.

These are Pleurocoelus tracks.

This is what a Pleurocoelus dinosaur looked like.

At one time Glen Rose was called Dinosaur Beach. Te He!

We decided to get some exercise, so we got Mallery's stroller out of the trunk and walked on the trail to Track Site 3.

The trail took us through some native prairies. Along the trail, a sign told us that only 4 % of the native prairies are left in the United States, due to over farming and urban development.

The trails down to the river at Track Site 3 was very treacherous also. In 2007 the Paluxy River flooded and reached 18 feet. The area where we were walking that day would have been  completely under water.

We looked and looked for the track, but could not find it. This hole in the river bottom may be one of the areas where a track was cut out to be preserved. Many tracks have been cut out to be saved and preserved.

After giving up on finding the track in Track Site 3, we continued on the trail to the campground. "What in the world is that"!

A toilet sat in someones site , which said Father- Daughter on it, as well as Troquois. OK, Joe do you need to use the restroom?

We turned around and followed the trail back to our car. We saw a couple of these green striped lizard on the trail on the way back.

On the way out of the park, I had Joe stop at the wildflower patch.

Blanketflower/Firewheel

I couldn't ID this flower. Anyone know ?

Indian Paintbrush

Again, not sure the name of this wildflower/weed found in Dinosaur Valley State Park.

Same wildflower/weed as previous picture, but bloomed.

Last we stopped at the Visitor Center in the park to see the dinosaur tracks for those who can not do the trails.

Pleurocoelus dinosaur track

I went inside the visitor center to tell someone about the raccoon that was stuck in the dumpster. I asked if anyone had reported it yet, because there were other people who had tried to help it out by putting a log in the dumpster, angle from the floor to the top edge. No one had reported it, so I was glad we had stopped. If someone doesn't help it get out, it will die in there. Inside the visitor center I found this information showing which dinosaur have been found in Texas.

When we got home, we stopped at the park office to see if we had receive any mail that day. As soon as Joe got out of the car, Mallery laid down in his seat and was out.

She is use to sleeping off and on most days, so when she goes with us, it's a long day with no snoozes.