Prehistoric Pranksters

I'm realizing (after 30 straight 100° days) that if you want to do anything outside, it might be better to do it in the morning. So I got up at six and drove a couple hours to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose. It was a fun drive and I got to see more iconic Texas things. Like big ranches with gates that have their names over them. Oh, an vultures in the middle of the road eating a raccoon.

So, I get to the park as it is opening up and take the lay of the land. Apparently, the story is: someone was putting in a new concrete sidewalk and the two jamokes pictured above, or someone matching their description, ran all across it leaving footprints.

Big footprints.
It should be easy enough to track them back to their hideout and get to the bottom of this.

Except, oh wait: it wasn't a nice flat sidewalk, it was a muddy riverbed and the trails look more like this.

At first it's like trying to pick out the dog footprints in a snowbank kids were playing in. The undulation of the mud and action of the water makes it harder to see them. But after a while walking up and down, you begin to pick them out and get a feel for the rhythm.

I got there early and had the bed to myself for a half hour or so. So I'm taking my snaps and whatnot and I hear what sounds like someone sweeping a broom behind me. I turn around and it's this guy:
A big vulture and his pal. They saw me sitting on the ground not moving for a bit and figured maybe they would sneak up and eat my carcass. The sweeping sound was his wings as one touched down. It was a little unsettling as I realized I really was alone out here in the woods. Especially because instead of immediately flying away when I turned around they just ambled along casually like they were doing something else. It wasn't until I pointed a camera at them that they went into a tree to wait for me to die from a distance.

So, it took a while to get into track spotting. At first it seemed like the one or two they had roped off could have been made by bigfoot-style pranksters with trick sneakers but as you went up the river it was interesting.

Turns out these weren't by the headlining T Rex and Brontosaur either, but less-famous also-ran dinosaurs. They aren't even really sure who. But one was a carnosaur raptor-type deal. Maybe Acrocanthosaurus. Yeah, ok. The other was a sauropod. maybe Paluxysaurus jonesi. The riverbed is the Paluxy and that sauropod was named the official dinosaur of Texas in 2009 so he seems like a good candidate, but the raptor was the hit of the riverbed in this reviewer's opinion.

The wicked toes were easy to spot and made neat slices into the rock. He was way funner than the jonesi, whose tracks looked like the work of a shoddy post hole digger.

After a couple hours of this, I had seen all I needed to and it was getting to be 95°, so I hit the bricks.

Just outside of the park was another attraction: The Creation Evidence Museum. Apparently it's dedicated to proving that human beings and dinosaurs lived together at the same time, just like in the Flintstones. I was quite interested in checking this out. But being Sunday it was closed. Ah well. I left feeling sorry for T Rex and his comically-useless arms.