Yesterday we packed up for a day trip to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas.  It was really cool!  At this National Natural Landmark, you can walk the paths of three different types of dinosaurs along the Paluxy River, in multiple places around the park.  Many of the tracks have eroded away since their discovery in the early 1900's, but there are still hundreds of them to explore--and some, as you see, are nicely defined!  Also nearby is the Creation Evidence Museum, where human footprints were discovered inside of dinosaur footprints.  God-haters and gajillion-year earth believers have discounted this as purely hoax... naturally. 

The most ironic part of our visit to Dino Valley, was the discovery that visitors are not allowed to approach within ten feet of touching the two fenced-off, cheesy plaster dinosaur statues near the park's entrance, but it is perfectly permissible to walk all over the withering dinosaur footprints--apparently some of the best preserved ones in the entire world--and contribute to their erosion (!!!).

After viewing the tracks in multiple locations in 105-degree weather, most notably the "Ballroom" site where tracks of different dinos can be seen pressed into the ground in all directions, we walked a couple hundred yards to the Blue Hole (side note... super original... In the US, the name Blue Hole is to natural swimming holes what Bridal Veil is to waterfalls--the best of which holes [in my opinion] can be found at a deep and beautiful natural spring on the Ocoee River in East Tennessee).  Here, we enjoyed swimming in some perfect-temperature water for about two hours.  On the drive back to Abilene, we stopped at Hard 8 BBQ, an authentic live-music joint for serious carnivores where the packed-out entrance line passes right through the smoky pits, and all meat is sold by the pound.