5/7 Dinosaur Exhibit at Grand Staircase Escalante Visitor Center

I am running a bit behind in posting on my blog because my regular computer screen died.  Actually, I should say that the dent was something I caused when I stopped suddenly a few weeks ago and my laptop, which should have been secured but wasn't, fell on the floor.  Oops.  It has been working, but started flickering, so I quickly backed everything up, and am now using a cheapo backup computer.  Hopefully, new computer I ordered from Dell which actually arrive in a day or two.  (Getting something shipped to you when you keep moving around is a real challenge.) 

In the meantime, I have left Zion National Park, and arrived at Lake Powell.  Pretty scenery on the way.  

When I got close to Lake Powell, I saw a sign for this visitor center, so I pulled over to check it out.  Good move!

As you can see from this map, this national monument takes up a LOT of space, but there are few roads through it and only a couple of basic campgrounds on the very edges. 

I liked the architecture of this building and the images of the dinosaur. 

And inside, they did indeed have real dinosaurs!  

And even a baby!  It was really hard to figure out what was what, but one of the rangers came over and helped.  

And, it turned out that that ranger was a real paleontologist--at least an amateur.  But he discovered the toe bone of the dinosaur standing on this log, below.  It was later excavated by a team from the University of Arizona, but he got it named for him--Nothronychus graffami.

Here is an article about this beast:  http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/15/paleo-profile-nothronychus-graffami/

He gave me some suggestions on other dinosaur museums to visit.  Anyway, a couple of miles down the road, I got my first glimpse of the poor old Lake Powell which could desperately use some more water. 

More pictures in a couple of days.