Today was a visit to Dinosaur National Monument.  Here are a couple of dinosaurs:

That shot was at the Fossil Gallery at the Jensen UT entrance to the park where they have built a building around the fossils that are still in the side of the hill.  Up until a few years ago the paleontologists were still there scraping the stone away from the fossils so they would stand out.  There are a number of other sites but this one is preserved with the building.  Fossils that went to many of the major museums in the US came out of this site years ago.

Most of the morning was spent at the Colorado portion of the park with a drive to Echo Park which starts with a nice paved highway but changes to a gravel road as you go down into the canyon.  Four wheel drive, high clearance vehicles are recommended...the jeep is the right vehicle.  It wasn't really all that bad, there were some "washboardy" places that were bumpy and a couple areas with a steeper than normal climb.  I checked with the rangers and they said the road was dry so very passable.  Its only a problem if it rains as it then gets slippery.  They do close it all down after Oct 15 for the winter so I just made it in.

The unpaved portion of the trip was about 13 miles one way but I took the better part of an hour to get to the bottom of the canyon.  Some of that was stopping along the way to take pictures but also because I was going slowly.

There was actually a family, the Chews, that homesteaded here and it wasn't until 1966 that they sold out to the Park.  Talk about isolated!

 Its wide enough in most places that two cars can get by and I did meet one car coming the other way.  I also had two 4x4 pickups come up behind me so I pulled over to let them by.  They were zipping along at a pretty good clip.  It turns out they were rangers and when I got to the bottom they were just getting ready to head back up.

Along the way there was a small cave in the side of the canyon wall, very accessible.  You can duck into it easily.

Having made it to the bottom of the canyon it was time for a little snack!

And just a few steps beyond this spot was the river that runs through it all...

There were a couple of folks in rubber rafts here and at the camping site there were half a dozen tents.  There is also a cabin for the park host to stay in during the season.  I noticed it had solar panels to provide some power for the host!

Time to head back up the hill...

Tomorrow I plan to get to the outskirts of Denver with the following route:   https://goo.gl/maps/ZNYYA3VWkbp