A Few Adventures In Glen Rose

DINO WORLD

We took a trip with some friends down to Glen Rose. Our main purpose was to visit Dino World, a huge park with 150 life-sized dinosaurs scattered throughout. My kids love learning about dinosaurs so they were super excited about this trip.

Dino World is about an hour from DFW. We had a great time on the trip but it started raining about 10 minutes away from the park. Fortunately, it seemed like it would pass soon.

We waited in the gift shop for a little bit to let the rain stop - and it did! The kids were loving all the cool dino stuff and of course, they all got a case of the gimmies. So I was pleased that we actually made it out of there without a single purchase or meltdown.

However....

After about 5 minutes in the park, I realized that Rachel wasn't wearing the same shirt that she came in. Although it was the exact same color as the one she was wearing, this one now had a cute picture of dinosaurs on it.



Wow! I turned my head for a moment in the gift shop to talk to Nicholas and apparently she put on a shirt without me noticing! Needless to say we had a little talk about not taking things that don't belong to her and we kindly returned the shirt to it's rightful spot in the gift shop.

Rachel wasn't too sure about posing for this picture. Her head was in it for about .001 seconds before she darted away.



What she really liked though were the trash cans around the dinosaur path that looked like baby dinosaurs breaking out of their eggs. The only problem was that she kept putting her hand in the trash can as she tried to tickle the dino! Ewww!



I read some of the information plaques to her but then she decided to "read" some of them to me. I love hearing her make up stories when she pretends to read.



The dinosaurs are placed really well along the path. They aren't just front and center buy sometimes they appear to creep around a tree or seem engrossed by other dinosaurs next to them. It made it much more life-life to have them posed in this way.



Even though it had stopped raining, Rachel insisted on using her umbrella for part of the walk. What's the point in having a frilly hot pink umbrella if you aren't going to use it every chance you get?



Nicholas had a great time. He really liked the Dilophosaurus and learned that the name means "double-crested" because of the colorful frill.



Even those these giant creatures didn't move or make growling sounds, Rachel still got scared at times and wanted to be held. I'm a sucker for holding my babies so I obliged even though it felt like it was a bajillion degrees hot with 210% humidity.



Of course, Nicholas loved the scarier looking dinos. He only wanted pictures with the scary ones like this Styracosaurus. And of course, around every corner he was looking for big ol' T-Rex.



The path led us to this sort of neon green pond. I'm sure that is it's natural color. Rachel was scared of the crocodiles. Watch out, here he comes!



There was a cool little dock that the kids enjoyed running around on.



There was even some fish food in a little vending machine (50 cents per handful).



Look at that catfish! Where's my pole? I'm bringin' home dinner!



Feeding the fish was a big hit with the kids. There were giant cats as well as some really pretty koi fish.







Of course, we had to share the view with some prehistoric giants.



Rachel even wanted to share her water with one.



We learned about the Pachycephalosaurus, one of the largest head-butting dinosaurs. He was a plant eater and one of the last dinos to go extinct.



Ahh, there's the big scary T-rex!



But that's not nearly as scary as the thought of all the mud that is going to be tracked back into the van when we leave!



When we were near the end of the path, Rachel decided that she wanted to wander the path back the way we had just come. Our group was moving ahead and I felt complete with all the dinos that I had seen and just wanted to relish in completing the trail. Going back through it from the end to the beginning just wasn't sounding appealing to me. But Rachel didn't like that answer so she squealed and pouted and sat her little bottom down on the wet and muddy sidewalk to pout.



Being two years old, this is to be expected but it should also be expected that Mom just might bribe her to get up with the promise of a yummy snack when we reach the end of the trail and wash our hands. Yay, snack! And that's all it took to put a smile on her face and a spring in her step. Oh, to have the worries of a two year old once again.



After a small snack and a brief playtime at the cool playground, we got to go to the Fossil Dig. This is what Mommy...I mean the kids, yes the KIDS were most excited about doing on this trip!



Grab a sifter and a cup and dig away in the sand looking for fossils.



Rachel was all about the scooping and pouring. Sometimes scooping and dumping onto the ground behind her. Nooooo!



But Nicholas got it. He was on a fossil hunting mission.



There were lots of cool things to find in this sand!



And it wasn't just by chance either. What's so neat is that they actually stock the sand with real fossils so the kids are guaranteed to find plenty of ancient pieces.



Here's just a random picture of the sand with shark teeth and other goodies just lying on the surface to be collected by little hands.



And you know what's also cool? The kids get to KEEP three fossils that they find. Yay! I'm mean, yay for the kids!



Fortunately, there are some neat charts with pictures to help you identify the types of fossils that they stock in the Fossil Dig.



So once everyone had finished collecting, we looked up what each piece was on the chart and used that information to help decide which pieces to narrow down to a favorite three. Tough choices!



There is also a dinosaur museum on-site and of course, you have to go back through the gift shop if you want leave. How convenient. I decided to buy the pink dinosaur shirt that Rachel had try to steal earlier and Nicholas got a beautiful piece of geode.

It was a great outing, especially for dinosaur-loving kids.

Dinosaur World is located at 1058 Park Road 59 in Glen Rose. It is open every day of the year except Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. Tickets are $12.75 plus tax for adults, $9.75 plus tax for children ages 3 to 12, $10.75 plus tax for seniors over 60. For more information, please visit the Dino World website.

BIG ROCKS PARK

We wandered around Glen Rose a little bit looking for this place but eventually we found it.



And you can really believe that the name says it all. Check out the size of these rocks!



Nicholas felt like King of the Mountain!



It was fun having a picnic lunch on top of giant rocks!





We wandered around on top of the rocks for a while.



I just can't get over how big these rocks are! How did they form? What is there history? I'd love to know.



Rachel found a cool spot in the shade under two rocks.



Looking around, it seems like this is right next to a spillway of some sort.



And where there is water, there will be kids!





Wet, muddy kids!



Nicholas was having fun playing in the water until he slipped and fell into the water. Dripping wet, he whined for a moment but then realized that his buddy was sitting completely in the water right behind him and was having a great time.



So no problem. Back to playing in the water.



The two buddies decided to help each other as they waded through the water to limit the slips and falls. It was rather slippery and uneven surface to walk on.



They happily found a cool new spot to dig around for rocks and other cool stuff.



What a fun place to play and learn. I love having the world around us as our classroom today!



I love this picture of Rachel holding up her pants as she wades through the water like she doesn't want to get the bottoms of them wet!



Rachel got over her worries of getting wet and dirty when she started getting excited about finding cool stuff in the water.



She picked up rocks and sticks and we watched little shrimp and minnows swimming around. I love this picture - Little girl totally absorbed in nature.



Of course, you can't get tired of just splashing in the water for fun.



I wish there was a place like this closer to home. I love watching my kids play with other kids in an environment like this. It's so much more fun than sitting around playing Nintendo DS all the time. Love it, love it, love it!



Nicholas loves dragonflies and found this cool one that he asked me to take a picture of.



A little more climbing around on the rocks before it was time to go.



What a fun adventure at Big Rocks! This was definitely the favorite part of our little trip to Glen Rose!



Fortunately, I had several changes of clothes and dry shoes for everyone to change into for the ride home!

I'm not really sure of the address for Big Rocks Park. We had an address that was found on the internet but it didn't lead us to the right place. I did make a note that it right by Oakdale RV Park in Glen Rose so I'll just look for that on the GPS next time. There are picnic tables there and restrooms. Several people came and went while we were there but the place is big enough that we hardly ever even noticed them.

THE CHISHOLM TRAIL MUSEUM in Cleburne

On the way back home, as we were going through Cleburne, we took an impromptu stop because from the road we could see tepees. Surely that's a sign that we should stop and investigate, right?

We found a neat little treasure called the Chisholm Trail Museum.



Rachel enjoyed running along what seemed like a regular dirt road but we learned that in 1856 this road was the Old Wardville Road. It was the first road from Johnson County to Birdville in Tarrant County. It later experienced millions of Longhorn cattle and thousands of Drovers on the world famous Chisholm Trail.



We got to go inside Texas' oldest log cabin courthouse.



Um, no real historical value in almost falling head first while trying to pick a flower. I just thought it was cute.



We saw old wagons that were put to good use back in the day.



Old rustic decor...I love this stuff!



We checked out an old authentic stage coach.



And, of course, we got to go inside some really neat tepees!



The Chisholm Trail museum is located on U.S. 67 in Cleburne on the west side of Lake Pat Cleburne. Join them in November for Pioneer Trail Days.



For more information, please visit the Chisholm Trail museum website. You can also follow them on Facebook.

1 comment:

  1. While Meadowmere Park in Grapevine does not have dinosaurs, they can play in the sand and in the water - my kids love it there, although it is suddenly less appealing now that there are swimming pools open all over the place I admit!
    Tasha
    Definitely will follow in your footsteps one day soon - maybe when it is cooler!

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