Dinosaur Valley

Glen Rose, TX is home to Dinosaur Valley. There are preserved dinosaur footprints as well as fossils in this area. We had explained this to the kids before we ever went on the trip.

Sweet Daughter was telling their swimming teacher about the trip. The teacher says how much she loves Dinosaur Valley because you can see real dinosaur footprints (I start nodding my head yes) next to real human footprints (still agreeing but hesitating) which proves they lived at the same time (I'm no longer agreeing).

The good news is Sweet Son replied with, "Dinosaurs are dead. Humans aren't. Just because two things are next to each other doesn't mean they happened at the same time." So at least I'm doing my part. After class Sweet Son kept coming up with examples like "if walk through mud that has rabbit prints, that doesn't mean the rabbit and I were walking together."

 There is a great deal of documentation about these footprints. The area is rural and decades ago, even with the dinosaur footprints, no one was visiting. The owner decided he could get more visitors if he added human footprints next to the dinosaur ones. After his death, this all came out as the hoax Scientists knew that it was all along.

However, the damage is done. This area now also has a creationist museum and a large production of Biblical stories. Dinosaur Valley is now a park publicly controlled. The prints are on the river bed and the water was too high when we were there to see them.

We did get to walk around. We saw the way the river was eroding the bank and had great discussions of the way water can literally shape our world. We also walked through grasslands and learned about this disappearing habitat and it's impact. It was a great learning experience.