The Final Day Trip

 

A couple days prior on our way from the Bighorns to our AirBnB rental, we drove through the town of Thermopolis and saw the sight you see above which I knew nothing about. So on our third day trip, we retraced our route and stopped to more fully explore what is touted to be the "World's Largest Mineral Hot Springs". It was indeed warm to the touch with the hottest part nearest the source coming out around 127 degrees F. As one might expect, the area is quite developed with the park you see above and walkways over the mineral deposits. To the right and out of frame was a public pool where you could swim in the water for the health benefits and the deserted remains of an old sanitarium and other infrastructure. 

In doing some research for our trip ahead of time (after seeing the area on our drive a couple days prior), I wanted to check out the bridge over the Bighorn River you see above. According to online sources, a rancher wanting to repair a tractor on one side of the river needed a large welder on the other side of the river. To get the welder from side A to side B, he rebuild a single board bridge into the much larger swinging bridge you see above. Not being an engineer, he looked at a photo of the Golden Gate bridge in California and based his homemade design off that. Unfortunately, the day we were there, they were doing maintenance on the bridge and it was closed to pedestrian traffic so I never got to walk across it.

Also in town was a Dinosaur Center that we decided to check out. I thought it would be a typical museum but I was very wrong. It was a museum but also the site of an active dinosaur dig and lab where they prepare bones for exhibits around the world. 

A picture of the lab where the fossils from the nearby dig site are taken to be cleaned and preserved for exhibits.

When we arrived at the museum, the lady taking admission asked if we wanted to go on the extended tour to see the actual dig site in the next group slated to leave in an hour.  Um.... heck yeah, we told her. So an hour later we loaded up in a large van with another family and drove ten minutes up into the nearby hills to a dig site underneath a metal roof. Off in the distance along the road are two more dig sites being actively worked.

The site under the metal roof was one of only three known feeding dig sites in the world and the only one featuring the allosaurus, the first dinosaur skeleton picture above. According to the lady above, another dinosaur had fallen over in the mudstone above and a herd of allosaurus dinosaurs fed on the body leaving footprints and bones everywhere. Because it was rare to find such a site (only three in the world exist) they have temporarily halted the dig to better study the area first before resuming. Also in the photo above are many fossilized bones, foot prints, bones covered in plaster jackets and another one covered in tinfoil. There was also damage due to a rock slide that destroyed the back wall which they hope to extend back into the mountain to recover the bones sticking out of the back berm at some point.

After the dinosaur dig site, we drove to another area near Thermopolis where bison were said to roam and after driving around awhile, finally spotted some of them off in the far distance. We also noticed a vehicle on top of another farther hill but much closer to them than we were so using my in dash navigation screen, were able to find a route to that point.

Although much closer to the bison, we were still a fair ways off from them. I'm guessing I was maybe 150 yards away from them when I took this photo using my phone and zooming in to the max. But that was close enough for me as I have no desire to get gored like some Yellowstone tourist does every year.  From there, we were content to head on back to our AirBnB for our last night and begin a long and slightly detoured journey home the following day.