Back in early April, Ross got a week off from work for spring break. So after a lot of discussing and wondering what to do or where to go for spring break, we decided to go give Vernal a try. It didn't sound too exciting, but neither of us had been there before and at least it was somewhere to go. It was a fairly quick trip. We left on Sunday afternoon and drove back Tuesday evening. But it turned out to be more fun than we had anticipated.
As we drove through the canyon, Leah was so excited to see all the snow. She kept asking if she could play in it. So we pulled over to the side of the road and let her get out and play for a few minutes. We didn't really bring winter gear as you can see from the picture. But she still had lots of fun being in the snow again. So much so in fact that she begged to stop again on the way back home.
After we got settled at the inn we would be staying in for the two nights, we drove over to check out the Vernal temple. We got there just as the sun was setting. It was a bit chilly, but the kids still had fun walking around and letting their little legs stretch after a long car ride.
One of Leah's favorite activities was watching videos on the little DVD player. Whenever we were in our room, that was all she wanted to do.
Monday morning we went to the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum (how's that for a long name?). It was a great time to go. Hardly anyone was there and we had plenty of time. So we let the kids play and enjoy checking everything out.
This digging exhibit was a favorite. Both kids loved playing in the "dirt" to uncover dinosaur bones. They both loved the puzzle area too.
This was another favorite activity. The rectangle lights on the floor of this ramp would light up one at a time and Leah would race up the ramp over and over again to see if she could get to the top before the last light came on. And since Leah was running up and down the ramp, Corbin loved doing it too. They probably played in this little area for 10-20 minutes (maybe even longer).
All that playing wore Corbin out and he spent the rest of the time at the museum asleep in the stroller.
This big woolly mammoth made Leah really nervous at first, but I convinced her to go get her picture taken by it.
While Ross stayed inside with a sleeping Corbin, I took Leah outside to see the dinosaur gardens. When I was young my dad always told us about his pet dinosaur named Skippy that he had as a kid and rode to school everyday. This is a story that he has perpetuated with his grand kids too. So when he found out we were going to Vernal, he told Leah to look for his pet dinosaur, Skippy. So here's a picture I took of her pointing at one of the dinosaurs so that we could send it to my dad with the caption "Is this your dinosaur, Grandpa?"
After the museum, we went to a local park for a picnic lunch. This park that was suggested to us by one of the workers at the museum was amazing! The playground area was HUGE. It had probably 7 or 8 different, big play sets on it plus lots of swings, a teeter-totter, and other little things like that. If it wasn't a three hour drive to get there, I would go back just to let the kids play at that park again.
Leah got a red mustache from the juice she was drinking from a water bottle.
These swings were pretty cool. Leah mostly liked them because they were red. But both kids liked just chilling while Ross and I pushed them. Leah even pretended she was asleep for a little while.
After the park we tried to go see some petroglyphs. We had heard there were some just outside of town that were easy to get to. In hindsight, we should have done more research on this before we just set out to find them. We started up the trail at the base of this rock formation only to realize that the trail required lots of climbing in tight spots. Leah fell down a couple of times and wasn't particularly enjoying the hike. And I was carrying Corbin and trying not to stumble or fall and get him hurt. We didn't see many petroglyphs and the ones we did see weren't that great. It wasn't long before we decided that this wasn't a good activity for our little ones and headed back to the car.
Here is a picture of us with some of the petroglyphs. If you look really close you can see some above my head and over to the far left from Corbin's feet.
Our little hike was along the base of this rock formation above the tree line. We saw a sign that said we could hike about 3 blocks more along that trail to see "better petroglyphs." But we decided to bail while we had the chance.
One of the things that most attracted me to going to Vernal was the chance to go to the Vernal Temple. I had never been there before and was curious to see a temple that had been converted from being a tabernacle. So Tuesday morning, Ross and I took turns doing a session. It was a little temple, but very beautiful inside and out. Being there made me even more excited to see our Provo tabernacle transformed into a temple.
After being at the temple, Ross picked me up and we headed out to Dinosaur National Monument to check out the Quarry. This was pretty cool to see. They had carved out the side of a mountain and left a lot of the fossils in the hillside. Then they built a building around it to preserve the area and let visitors come and see. They even allowed you to touch some of the fossils that were there in the quarry.
Our kids were more interested in playing with the rocks than checking out the dinosaur fossils. Go figure.
I thought it was fascinating how well you could see the dinosaur remains.
Here's our little family overlooking the valley near the quarry.
All too soon our trip came to an end and we had to head back home. So until next time, Vernal. Leah is especially anxious to go back someday. (She also loved this pink dinosaur we saw on our way out of town.)
