We stayed at the Fossil Rim cabins near Glen Rose for two nights. The cabins are very basic -- just two twin beds with a narrow walkway between, leading to a small bathroom. We didn't need anything more! Gene and Henry, who like to sleep in, bunked in together, while Will and I, both early risers, shared a cabin. Will and I were up before dawn, enjoying coffee and hot cocoa in the dining pavilion and watching the sun rise. After Gene and Henry joined us for a hearty breakfast, we were off on our behind-the-scenes tour.
As often is the case with our Polar Express adventures, a cold front came through overnight, dropping the temperature down to about 35 degrees for our outside adventure in an open-air truck. Our tour was supposed to be 2 1/2-3 hours, but we had a very slow, repetitive tour guide who informed us her tours were 4 hours long. In the end, because it was so cold, we just did the behind-the-scenes tour with the group and visited the rest of the wildlife center in our own car (with heat and seat warmers!).
The behind-the-scenes tour took us to the Jim Jackson Intensive Management Area, where we saw Mexican gray wolves, red wolves, and a black-footed cat, as well as the cheetahs and black rhinos. It was interesting and we were glad to see some of the animals not on the regular tour.
But, the cold drove us into our toasty car for the rest of the drive for the safari park. Many more animal photos are coming up, so scroll on down if animals aren't your thing!
Blackbuck
Roan Antelope
Scimitar-Horned Oryx
Emu
Greater Sandhill Crane
Fallow deer
Aoudad (just the horns!)
We have discovered that drive-through safari parks are a tremendous amount of fun. We all love feeding the animals and watching them trot up to the car. Fossil Rim Wildlife Center does a lot of good work, conducting research and helping endangered and threatened species.
After our driving tour, we headed back to the town of Glen Rose for lunch. We had eaten at Hammond's BBQ the night before and the boys loved it so much that they asked to go back, so we did. The food was delicious! With full bellies, we headed to nearby Dinosaur Valley State Park.
When we arrived, we were met with a sign telling us the dinosaur tracks were not visible, but we were there, so we decided to go for a short hike anyway. The park rangers told us that we could see the tracks if we got about knee-deep in the water. Henry was all for that and started rolling up his pant legs, but fortunately, we were able to see some tracks without getting in the water. If you look in the photo below, you can see the three-toed track of a theropod (carnivorous dinosaur). The deep impression at the right is a sauropod track (made by a large herbivorous dinosaur). There are hundreds of tracks at the park, and I can only imagine how amazing it would be see when they weren't all covered with water. Nevertheless, it was pretty incredible to walk where dinosaurs walked millions of years ago.
Dinosaur Valley State Park
After a full day of adventuring, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, napping, reading, playing games, and enjoying delivered pizza in the pavilion.
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