I-70

We left Dale’s house on Thursday afternoon and headed towards Jensen Uyah where Dinosaur National Monument is located. We drove I-70 through the Rockies and before we came to Loveland Pass and the Eisenhower Tunnels we encountered heavy  snow and slow going. We were grateful for our 4 wheel drive Tacoma which made the trip less anxiety prone.  It was a beautiful drive and we saw skierson te slopes  at both Loveland and Vail and the drive through Glenwood canyon was breathtaking in it’s gray scale beauty.  The picture above is our dinner break upon leaving I-70 for CO-13.

Dinosaur National Monument

We arrived at the Split Rock campsite around 11pm and set u in the dark and awoke to the beauty of the land surrounding the campground.

After breakfast we headed to the visitor center to get our Jr. Ranger Badges and to take the Dinosaur Quarry Tour.

STEGASAURUS!

The quarry is enclosed in a glass walled building covering a slab of rock that contains over 400 bones of 7 different dinosaur species.

The girls were excited to touch a real dinosaur bone

Dinosaur National Monument
Desert Voices Trail

To earn our badges one of the requirements was to hike a trail so we chose the desert Voices Trail near the campground.

It was a beautiful hike through the red/orange/brownish landscape.

Back at the visitor center we claimed our badges from ranger Tiffany!

Dale, Kristie & Justin’s House

We arrived at Colleen’s brother’s house around 9am on Tuesday and finally got to meet the new addition to the family…

Justin Lucas Kutin, 4 months old

Proud Auntie & Cousin

Jakobi and Justin

The girls LOVED  the 2 dogs and spent most of their time playing with them.

On Wednesday we woke up to 2″ of snow and temps in the single digits.

Everyday, sometimes twice a day the girls walked the dogs

Denver Museum of Science & Nature

We spent Wednesday afternoon at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

We’ve been to a lot of museums with the COSI reciprocity deal and thi is one of the best!

There was an awesome exhibit on whales…

Proud uncle in the cafe

…and lots of beautiful dioramas

Interstellar

I took advantage of the big city to go see Interstellar at an IMAX theatre, $18.00 for a movie, WOW!  It was good, very mind-bending and beautiful scientifically accurate depictions of a wormhole (more like a wormsphere) and a black hole. Lots of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity put to the cinematic test. 4 STARS but only a few scenes worthy of the IMAX treatment; nothing compared to the 3D IMAX Avatar experiece.