After leaving Little America, we were driving north to Wilson, WY where we were staying near Grand Teton National Park.
Hard at work
When we were at the University of Wyoming Geological Museum in Laramie, a local had mentioned to me that there was a great stop on the way called Fossil Butte National Monument. So we added this to our itinerary on the drive up to Grand Teton.
Fossil Butte might be one of my favorite National Park Service stops. It’s a smaller visitor center, but packed with fossils and information about fossils, including an interactive timeline on the outside that charts evolution of life on earth. The rangers were very knowledgeable and helpful and it was a great stop to build on what we had already learned in the UW museum.
Evolutionary Timeline
Like all of our national parks and monuments, they had a “junior ranger” book and badge for the kids to earn. The books have age appropriate goals and activities for kids. For example, Liam at 9 years old may need to complete 6 tasks while Declan might only have to complete 4. The boys spent about 2 hours in the visitor center completing the research and tasks necessary to earn their junior ranger badges. They were especially excited that they got some “extra” badges, one special one for the solar eclipse and another for historical preservation (and accompanying book which we completed after we left).
Junior Ranger Oath
We were chatting with the rangers about our trip itinerary and they mentioned the fires in Montana that were threatening Glacier National Park. This was the first we had heard of it. Kyle and I don’t really watch local news, so we hadn’t come across the news of these fires. They showed us the fire map and we agreed that it didn’t look to dire, most of the road closures were smaller roads.