We woke up to a warm day in Eastern Colorado:
Here at Picket Wire Canyon, there are wild sunflowers everywhere:
We unhitched the truck and drove to the trailhead for the 12 mile round-trip hike in the canyon:
As we walked, we startled dozens of grasshoppers to flight. They’re pretty big, and all the swatting slowed our progress:
The canyon is dotted with abandoned homesteads:
Ants create strange cones of debris around their holes, maybe for flood protection?
There are remarkable variety of grasshoppers here:
Another canyon dweller:
Ruins of a 19th century church and cemetery:
A Dung beetle taking home his prize:
The “rock” on the left is a recreation of a dinosaur fossil found here:
At last we arrived at our goal for today, the Purgatoire River track site. It’s the largest dinosaur track site in North America. Portions of the track site were discovered as recently as 2014:
The tracks are so well preserved that it’s easy to imagine this meat-eating Allosaurus roaming the area, hunting for prey:
Glad they’re not here now:
We had to ford the Purgatoire River to see the rest of the tracks. The river was flowing fast enough that I was worried we would be swept off our feet:
This side of the river has tracks left behind by the massive plant-eating Apatosaurus. It was neat to follow the tracks and imagine these lumbering beasts wandering the river bank:
This interpretive sign shows the tracks as seen from the air:
We made our way back across the river. I used a branch as a brace to prevent being knocked off my feet by the current:
We spotted this Horned lizard on the way back:
We picked up the pace on our return trip. Thunderstorms were closing in on us from behind with sporadic lightning, and we were the tallest feature on the trail, so we wanted to get back to the truck before the storm reached us:
We got back to the truck as it started to rain and drove back to the RV:
We drove north to La Junta, Colorado to overnight at the Walmart there:
See the alternating light blue line on the trip map for today’s drive.