Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and Sand Dunes Recreation

Hooper, Colorado

Today was moving day. We had breakfast and packed up then headed to Walmart to get a couple of blankets and some provisions for the next couple of days. We definitely didn’t pack warm enough blankets for this trip. Last night was only 63 degrees and we still were cold.

We decided to stop at a Sonic on the way to our next stop but we had trouble getting our order taken (we had to park and walk over due to the trailer and the ordering stations on the patio weren’t working).

We got to Florissant Fossil Beds a half hour later than we wanted. We planned to stay until 2 or 2:30 so we still had plenty of time for the kids to do their Junior Ranger books–Lily even did the Paleontology Ranger Badge too. Our kids did that one at Badlands.

This area is known for their delicate fossils of plants and insects. Apparently it’s rare to find complete insects with wings and that show the detail of the leaves down to every last vein and even insect damage to leaves. That’s because the rock where the fossils are is paper shale which is super fine and delicate. I forgot to take pictures of the insects and leaves on display but I took some pictures from the visitor guide so you can see what I mean.

They also have petrified wood here, most notably many redwood tree stumps. Redwoods used to grow in this area but don’t anymore due to the climate changing over the past 30+ million years. These stumps were entombed in mud during a mudslide off of a volcano that used to be in the area 35 million years ago. The tops of the trees broke off in the force or rotted off but the stumps were preserved in the mineral rich mud basically becomeing fossilized in the same way plants and animals do. Minerals slowly replace the organic material on a cellular level so even though it looks like wood, it feels like rock and is as heavy as rock. The one where there are 3 stumps together, each one is 12 ft tall and about 4 feet wide. The other larger stumps are about 10 feet wide.

Melissa was on a video call meeting for work. Unfortunately she is having some technical difficulty with the Starlink related to powering it, which sucks. She was able to plug into an outlet at a pavilion at the park and when she finished her meeting we all went on a walk to see “Big Stump” which was the largest uncovered petrified stump (12 feet wide by 12 feet tall). This stump has saw blades stuck in it because people tried to cut the stump into pieces so it could be transported to the World’s Fair in 1893.

Speaking of covered and uncovered. All of the stumps are below ground level. Some are excavated for visitors to view. This excavation started in the 1860s. In the 1980s they reburied some of the stumps to help preserve them because the wind, rain, and sun all take a toll on them. Some of the stumps have shelters built over them to protect them and some had sophisticated monitoring systems calculating how much wind, rain, and sun they are getting. Many had bands around them to help hold them together because they’re starting to fall apart.

Cal took most of the photos today. Here are some more of us at Florissant that Cal took:

We got ice cream treats at Walmart so I played ice cream truck driver and handed out treats before we loaded back into our respective vehicles and drove to our next RV resort.

Enjoy this time-lapsed video of part of our drive!

2.5 hours later we arrived, got settled in and warmed up hot dogs and hamburgers from the other night for dinner.

This place has pools heated by hot springs and adult only pools which we plan of visiting tomorrow. We filled up with water when we got here and the water comes out of the tap at 112 degrees!

The mosquitos here are vicious! I’ve never seen this many in my life. We also saw rabbits and the boys saw a lizard.

Miles today: 189

Melissa’s post from today: https://wp.me/peTbeK-IP