Road Trip, Day 1 and 2; Glen Rose, TX (Updated)

We headed out on our road trip around 1am on Sunday, May 8th. Our first stop was Glen Rose, TX, where Charles wanted to go to Dinosaur Valley State Park. Home to some of the best-preserved dinosaur tracks in the world, they're fossilized in the bed of a river that runs through the park. Unfortunately I don't have photos to share, since I'd deleted them from the memory card after downloading them to my laptop, which died the very next day (go figure.) I'm going to bring the laptop to a techie friend to see what he can do.

Update, Jul. 12, 2011; My laptop's a goner, but my friend got my photos back. Here are a few;

Apatosaurus and tyrannosaurus models.

Dinosaur tracks (left by the hunter, Acrocanthosaurus.) The prey dinosaur's tracks are just kind of circular, so I didn't include them here. They were made by Paluxysaurus (named in '07 after the river in which these tracks lie. Also now the official dinosaur of Texas.)

In Glen Rose, we stayed at an Americas Best Value Inn, which was nice enough. The man at the desk was professional, but never quite warm or friendly. I wondered if the company motto was; "Americas Best Value Inn. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

Before hitting the road to Carlsbad, NM on May 9th, we wandered a bit and stopped by Big Rocks Park, which we'd accidentally discovered not far from our hotel the previous day.

The rocks here are, indeed, big and some had strange pits in them. It was fun wandering around here. At one point we thought we caught a glimpse of a big cat, but in retrospect I think it was just a really large, domesticated one.

My first sighting of a green heron. There was also some kind of sandpiper.

Somehow I'd gotten my polarizing filter stuck on my camera lens at the park. Neither of us could get it off, so we went to a local hardware store to look for a tool to aid the process, but an employee there was able to get the filter off with no problem. Evidently Ace really is the place with the helpful hardware folks...thankfully!

Not far from our hotel we also came upon this quaint, dilapidated building. I have no idea what it once was, but it was cool all the same.

Part of what made it cool (and appropriate to the ruined setting,) about a dozen black vultures were in the trees nearby.

We also went by Dinosaur World. Although we didn't go in, I had to get a picture of one of the statues outside.

We'd bought a GPS to help navigate, which gave us questionable or downright bad directions from time to time (fortunately I also brought directions from Google Maps and a road atlas of N. America.) Leaving the Americas Best Value Inn (not letting the door hit me in the ass on the way out,) despite knowing we had to go left, I followed the GPS's direction to make a right. It then told us, "In 400 yards, make a u-turn." Stupid GPS!

Much of the rest of the day was spent driving across Texas, heading to our next destination; Carlsbad, NM. We checked into a hotel (where my laptop died,) then had dinner at a Chinese restaurant that boasted the "best Mexican food" on a large banner outside. I should have taken a hint from that. Although my food was alright, Charles really didn't enjoy his meal & if the place had an atmosphere, it was "suicidal." Things only got better from there, fortunately, so stay tuned!

Next stop; Carlsbad, NM.