Today we visited the Sheep Rock unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument:

The visitor center, built in the last 15 years, is so much better than the old facility and does a great job of explaining the rich fossil record found here:

Since I used worked at Hancock Field Station in the Clarno Unit of the Monument (we also spent a weekend there on this trip), I was especially interested to see the portion of the visitor center that dealt with the Hancock Mammal Quarry:

Research continues on-site:

The kids received their Junior Ranger badges:

We continued on to visit the Painted Hills unit of the Monument.  There’s no visitor center here, just great views of the multi-colored hills:

Continuing on, we drove over Mount Hood to arrive in Portland where we will be for the next three weeks for Rosh Hashanah through Simchas Torah.  See the trip map for driving details.