First, the geology. Near Fruita I found the Colorado National Monument, with impressive canyons and cliffs. Here you can get an idea of the landscape, and see Fruita peeking through the end of one of the canyons:
But look again and notice the rock layers. The cliffs are mostly red sandstone, from a time when this area looked like the Sahara. Above that and later in time is the Morrison Formation, which is full of DINOSAURS! You can see this layer as one of the lighter color bands at the very top of the cliff in shadow on the left side. (Thanks, random person with a camper van who was boring her companion with yet another geology lesson when I walked up and got excited and started asking questions, and sorry to the bored companion for lengthening the lesson!)
Armed with new knowledge, I headed to the Dinosaur Museum in Fruita. This place is packed with fossils from the area and a couple of rather frightening robotic dinosaur dioramas that move and roar. And in the back, big glass windows into the work room where people clean and process fossils as they come in from the field. Very cool!
The next morning as I left Fruita I stopped at the Walk Through Time park. This is an empty hillside where several dinosaur skeletons have been found, and new excavations are still happening. Safely away from the active sites, a little loop trail goes by a few fossils that have been left in the rock. Here's my foot about to step on a Diplodocus neck!
And then further along the trail I found a rock with something sticking out of it. There was no helpful labeling sign, so I have no idea whether this was once a piece of wood or bone or what, but it looks like a fossil to me!
So, with another fossil find under my belt, I hopped back in the car and headed into Utah....
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