Camping at Dinosaur Valley!

Every year for my birthday we go on a camping trip. There is something about getting out in nature and disconnecting for a while that makes me happy! So we packed up the car and headed out to Glenrose, TX and Dinosaur Valley!

Nothing like some dinosaur models to greet you as you enter the park!

In 1908 there was a massive flooding in the Paluxy river where old fossilized tracks were uncovered by years of heavy sediment. A year later, a man named George Adams found large, three-toed tracks. We now know these to be theropod tracks. But it wasn't until 20 years later that a team of archeologists came to study the riverbed and study the tracks. That team found tons of tracks, which then allowed us to understand the hight, gait, migration patterns and, yes, even what hunted other dinosaurs! In the 1970's, the state park was made to help preserve these tracks.

One of the many river bed spots where you can view the tracks. 

These tracks were awesome!

What's also awesome about Dinosaur Valley is they offer primitive camping! We were really excited as we hiked over the river and through the woods, literally, to our camping spot! Part of the trail actually goes along the bottom of a river bed!

All packed up and ready to head out!

I title this one, Mobile-Maddie

Once we got there is was time to make camp. We set up all our gear, ate dinner and watched the stars before we headed to bed. 

Next morning it was time to get up and go geocaching! I was really close to my 400th geocache and so we had a really ambitious goal of getting over 15 caches in two days.

Our little camp!

I am so in love with my little coffee maker!

Hiking along the river bottom

We set off and looked at the dino tracks before hiking up the hill. We found some of the caches on the way!

Spectacular view of the entire park!

Loving the view, weather and company!

Went to this really cool spot as a virtual cache where we had to hike down a gully to get to the water fall!

We hiked all the way over to the other side of the park and found a cache placed way back in 2001! These are really rare and it was cool to read all the old logs. We then found a nice shady spot and ate lunch!

The backpacker's way of preparing lunch!

Feeling pretty proud of ourselves so far!

We helped our fellow cachers out by adding new logsheets where the originals were getting full.

We then hiked our way back over to our campsite, finding a couple of really fun natural pools of water (where we happily spashed around for a while), and some wildlife!

Duchess sniffed this guy out and we relocated him away from the trail a bit.
He had covered himself in mud to cool himself off!

We hiked over nine miles day one. But then we realized we were going to have to find some geocaches outside the park to make my goal. So we got in the car quick and found some really cool old cemeteries...and even drove across a river crossing (safely, of course)! It was really cool to see other aspects of the little town and the surrounding countryside.

 We then made it back to our campsite for dinner. We have some pretty fantastic gear that I thought I would share. We found gluten free MRE's from Alpine Aire and they were tasty! Our bugaboo camping pack was perfect and I loved our new sporks that we found at Cabella's. Multifunctional, they didn't sacrifice on the primary function of getting food to my mouth!

Love our little sporks!

Dinner!

Of course, what is camping without S'mores! No ground fires were allowed at our campsite, so we had to opt for gas roasted marshmallows. Also, it's hard to find the gluten free graham crackers we had in Houston. But, we substituted gluten free snickerdoodle cookies and HOLY COW! Incredible!

Roast little marshmallow!

Perfection

Everyone was tired after our day of play, including the geodog. We called for some "In-tents" stretching so we wouldn't be sore the next day!

Tired geodog

"In-tents" stretching!

Next morning we headed out to find two more geocaches on the other side of the park.

We found my 399th geocache!

Then, we sadly had to say goodbye and pack up our campsite.

Butterfly came to say goodbye!

I'm all packed up!

So is Jared!

Now it was just a matter of hiking out! Easier said than done!

River crossing...again!

Putting my balance to the test!

My final geocache of the trip, my 400th, was the Dinosaur Valley Earthcache! So awesome to learn all about the different types of dinosaurs that used to live in Texas!

We loved this camping trip and had so much fun exploring. We see us coming back and enjoying the hiking trails and little rivers all throughout the park as a way to unwind and relax. Super awesome experience. Hope you get to so someday too!