Dawn on the Paluxy River I (worth seeing in a larger view here)

Dawn on the Paluxy River II.

There has long been a lively debate on the nature or possibility of traveling through time. It's arguably possible that time travel into the future can occur given some demonstrations in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. Astronauts experience a change or compression in time arriving back on earth with their own clock no longer in sync with terrestrial chronological linearity—in fact and in a sense—time travel.

Moving one's physical self to the past presents different challenges to the laws of physics. Paradoxes arise on what our own hand in past events would do to our existence in the time from which we departed. I'm not a theoretical physicist. I've experienced the sense of being outside the constraints of time—not just by means of dèjá vu or l'esprit d 'escalier—which are neurological phenomena, but in an hour's trip southwest from Dallas. My Honda Element is not really a time machine on most days. It was that day.

The top image above is transportive. I can say with confidence that the Paluxy River valley didn't look like this 113 million years ago. There is, though, the hint of anachronism. The sedimentary rock under my feet in that image was laid down in a vast inland ocean. There were probably upheavals and recessions in the millions of years since being deposited.

However, at some point where the inland sea had vanished, dinosaurs roamed. There be footprints.

Theropod

Sauropod in the distance, Ornithopod in the foreground 

Ornithopod, probably of an Iguanodon

Theropods

Theropods

Theropod toenails

Theropod toenails

A theropod is any of the various large canivorous saurischian dinosaurs of the Jurrasic and Cretaceous periods (saurischian defines an order that describes the hips and pelvis of a dinosaur similar to that of a modern reptile). Theropods are characterized by bipedal (two-legged) locomotion, large jaws and short forelimbs (used for hugging).

A sauropod is a large semiaquatic plant-eating saurischian dinosaur, also of the Jurrasic and Cretaceous.

Dinosaur Valley State Park is a short day trip away southwest of the metro areas of Dallas and Fort Worth. It's located just west of Glen Rose, famous for the nuclear power plant that, when proposed, promised the residents of north Texas unlimited nearly free power. (Last summer during an egregious heat wave, our modest home saw a $700 electricity bill—remember, I live in Hades.)

There is camping with electric hook-ups, picnic tables and restrooms with showers. Primitive campsites are a short 2.5 mile hike away and the park also features about 12 miles of hike and bike trails.

It's only $5 for a day pass for one vehicle, regardless of how many bodies you stuff into the seats and trunk.

The first tracks were found in what is now a 1500 acre state park in 1909. But it wasn't until Roland T. Bird of the American Museum of Natural History visited the site that it gained renown. Bird excavated great slabs of limestone with embedded prints and which now reside in the AMNH in New York City.

Just after entering the park, you'll see a free-standing building, a gift shop where you can buy trinkets and memorabilia. It also provides comestibles and support items for the campers who've pitched their fifth wheels and RVs in tiny tree-lined sites.

Next to the gift shop we see a couple of characters who are a bit misleading. The Tyrannosaurus Rex and Brontosaurus fiberglass models were built for the Sinclair Oil Company (you may have seen the company logo of a dinosaur—a tribute to the transformation from terrible lizards to petroleum). They were originally displayed at the New York World's Dinosaur Exhibit of 1964, sponsored by Sinclair Oil. They were made by a New York artist, Paul Jones and subsequently donated to the Dinosaur Valley State Park in 1970. The Brontosaurus was renamed to the more appropriate Apatosaurus and had a face lift of sorts to conform to recent discoveries of dinosaur morphology—such as moving the nostrils to the top of the forehead.

I say they're a bit misleading because the footprints in the park are not of a T-Rex or Apatosaur, but they're more likely to be of an Acrocanthosaurus, a 20- to 30-foot-long carnosaur and the 50-foot-long plant-eating Pleurocoelus, respectively. They're fun to look at though.

Happy snack!

The corral seems a bit inadequate, don't you think?

Pinky, also from Seattle and Freaky's cousin, often accompanies me on my sojourns. Here's she's pretending to lead the carnosaur charge. My time machine is in the background.

Curiously, there is a Creation Museum near the entrance to the Dinosaur Valley State Park. I guess it just bugs the hell out of the creationists and intelligent designists to have evidence of theropods and sauropods set amidst the history of science and uniformitarianism. That doesn't seem to have stopped misappropriation of scientific analysis. From the Creation Evidence Museum website:

Evidence be damned.

Not surprisingly, after deciding to find such evidence of the disparite cohabitations, Dr. Carl found exactly that. The Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint purportedly shows a human footprint overlayed by a theropod imprint. Images of the good Doctor's proof can be found here. Suffice it to say, the "evidence" has been throughly debunked. But don't let the facts confuse you—talk about time compression... 

Stars in the rivers transport us to another time

"I think you need a huuuug"

all images copyright © 2009, 2010 by barry b. doyle • all rights reserved 

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