Road Trip Adventure

Some time ago, before his birthday, Gunnar decided that he wanted to go somewhere to dig dinosaur fossils. We told him that we might be able to make that happen. We were thinking about going to Utah where you can find dinosaur fossils. That seemed to be too much of a trip for the time we had or wanted to spend. However, right in our own state, there are lots of fossil beds. Grandpa Livingston wanted to take Gunnar (& Paden, too) to check out the fossils. They came and picked us up on Friday and we headed south of our place toward John Day, Oregon. Grandpa took a trip down memory lane as we found some of the houses he used to live in at John Day and Seneca. We went all they way to Burns to check out the territory. Grandpa was baptized there a few years ago! We stayed the night in Burns in a hotel with an indoor pool, of course. The boy LOVE swimming. They have no fear of the water. Paden wears a little vest and arm floaties and he just bails off the edge of the pool into the deep end. This pool had a ledge on the deep end that had a raised area where it was about 2.5 feet down to the water. Paden had NO fear to jump down from there. It was pretty funny to watch them both.

After breakfast in the morning, we headed back north. We went back through John Day and headed up to the town of Fossil. Along the way we stopped at the Thomas Condon Palentology Center. It was very, very cool. It has TONS of fossils that were all found in Oregon. I think the person there said that their fossils come from 22,000 square miles covering Eastern Oregon. Gunnar asked if they had a Pterodactyl. They said that they did find a bone that they believed to belong to one. The fossil doesn't live at that visitor center anymore. She said that the layer of earth is after the dinosaur period, so they usually find other animals and plants. She was really nice though. She said that is the first time anyone asked if they found a Pterodactyl.

We then headed off to Fossil to dig our own fossils. There's a place behind the high school in town where you can discover fossils. We were warned that the lady that runs it is kind of grumpy. And she was. It was sprinkling and she had closed it down. She did, after a little coaxing, let us go out and rummage through the rocks that people had already dug out. Good enough for our boys, we though. So, we didn't get to do real fossil uncovering, but we still found quite a few. It was sprinkling and I didn't bring the camera out. The very first rock that Gunnar picked up had a couple of leaf fossils in it. Here it is!

We stayed out there for quite a while, it was quite addicting just rummaging through the pieces that others had thrown out. I am not sure what people were looking for, but we found a lot. Paden believes that he found dinosaur fossils; he found a leaf or two. We brought home quite a few fossils. It was pretty fun. It started out kind of rocky because of the grumpy lady, but in the end it was good. We took a picture with the giant statue of the wooly mammoth. It's made of metal, it's pretty cool.

We then headed back home via the way of Heppner. We've not been there yet. People told us that it was a quaint little town. It is. We ate at "Howe's About Pizza". It was pretty good. Many of us in the vehicle were tired and ready to be done with road trip by then, myself included. We blew threw two pizzas and headed home.

All in all, it was a good trip. A whole lot of driving, but we had a pretty good time. Gunnar's favorite part was the fossils and his second favorite part was the pool at the hotel. Paden's favorite part was the pool at the hotel and his second favorite part was the fossil museum. We have some pictures, but they are on Grandpa's camera. I'll get them probably in a couple of weeks.