Road Trip: Dinosaur Valley State Park

Mural in Downtown Glen Rose, TX

On our weekend road trip to the Dallas area we stayed overnight in Glen Rose, Texas to visit Dinosaur Valley State Park. Glen Rose is about a hour southwest of Dallas. It's a really beautiful area of Texas. It reminded me a lot of the Austin area.




A few months ago I came across a list of 100 Places to Take Your Kids Before They Grow Up from Frommers.com.

There were 3 places in Texas that they suggested, The Alamo, The Fort Worth Stockyards Museum, and Dinosaur Valley State Park. I have been to The Alamo and have heard of the Stockyards but I had never heard of Dinosaur Valley State Park.

Dinosaur Valley State Park is along The Paluxy River. Along the riverbed you can find 110 million year old fossilized dinosaur foot prints. As a child I LOVED dinosaurs. While other kids were planning on being, teachers, doctors, fireman, and the like, I wanted to be a paleontologist. My dino-wonder has lessened a bit as I have gotten older I am still fascinated by them,

Before we headed to the park we got up early and headed out to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center which is just a few miles away from the state park. Evan is a sucker for any chance to see animals so he was particularly excited about this part of the trip. Fossil Rim is a drive through animal park. It's on a beautiful piece of land. A few stand outs were the Black Rinos even if you couldn't seen them very well, the cheetah sanctuary, and the Giraffes.

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center

The Girraffes walked right up to us and tried to eat from the feed bag in the truck.

The Giraffes visiting the visitors.

It took a while for Sadie to warm up to it but she finally did.

Zebras

This is a terrible picture of one of the Black Rinos but it was pretty exciting to see.

After the park we went downtown and had lunch at Hollywood and Vine.

From there we headed to the main event! To the Dino-prints! 

Dinosaur Display from the 1960 World's Fair at the State Park.

Every time we drove past this display Sadie would roar. She loved them. 

The park is really lovely.

Fossilized Foot Prints


Fossilized Foot Prints


Sadie Climbing




















Ballroom site




Sadie playing in the river.








Evan as T-Rex

The river water was clear and cold. It was perfect to cool off in with the still stiffing October Texas heat. There was another print site that we didn't make it to. A cranky two year old had had enough so we will have to try it again next year.