A Weekend Adventure: Central Texas (Day 1)

For the past two years, the boys have both had the entire week of Thanksgiving off, which has allowed us to do some local traveling. Henry still gets really excited about our annual Polar Express tradition, so we began planning this trip back in the summer when the Polar Express tickets went on sale. This year, we added on a couple of days in Central Texas and hit a few sites that had been on our must-visit list for at least three years.

The week before Thanksgiving was a whirlwind of school, projects and field day, and we had to do some Thanksgiving shopping at the farmers market before we could leave town on Saturday. Still, we somehow managed to get out the door shortly after 10am and drove straight to Waco to visit the Waco Mammoth National Monument.

Waco Mammoth National Monument is one of the national park system's newest sites, and it is absolutely amazing. The paleontological site showcases three distinct layers of fossils, including a layer with a nursery herd (mothers and babies) of Colombian mammoths. The fossils are from 67,000 year ago. Even in the Ice Age, it was still relatively warm in Texas, so there were no woolly mammoths here.  

This fossil of a camel was found on the same layer as the nursery herd. Scientists have found camel fossils with mammoths at other sites, but aren't quite sure what the relationship between the animals was.

Waco Mammoth National Monument was spectacular and we highly recommend a visit if you find yourself near Waco.

After our visit, we had another hour of driving up to Glen Rose, where we stayed in the cabins at the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center for two nights. This was our view of the park upon arrival.

More adventures coming up soon!