Glen Rose

We arrived in Glen Rose, Texas Tuesday afternoon after taking the scenic route up from Galveston.  No trip through backwoods, Texas is complete without a stop at Dairy Queen for some Blizzards.  (Hello, Girl Scout Thin Mint Blizzard.  I can’t believe we haven't met before.) When we got to town, the boys, once again, spent some quality time in the hotel swimming pool before we ventured out to parts unknown in search of dinner.

Brandon and I don’t like to go to places like Pizza Hut and Subway when we’re on vacation.  We like to find little restaurants that are perhaps unique to the town we are visiting.  After consulting the lady at the hotel front desk, we decided on a little BBQ place that promised blackberry cobbler for dessert.  (I’m kind of a fan of blackberry cobbler, incaseyoudidntknow).  Unfortunately, the cobbler place and the next four restaurants we passed were closed, their signage advertising Friday and Saturday hours only.  What kind of town is this?  Don’t they know that people flock by the tens to Glen Rose on Tuesdays in the comfy heat of August?  Most of the cute little shops downtown, including a charming looking establishment called Pie Peddlers, were closed during the week. 

 We finally settled on a little “home cookin’” type of restaurant:  BLTs, chicken fried steaks, breakfast for dinner, etc.  Only they also had an entire page on their menu with Mexican food on it, and served chips and salsa before the meal.  Interesting.  Chips—good.  Salsa—good.  Pancakes—good.  So basically the perfect restaurant.

 Brandon and the boys did a little exploring without me and Harper on this leg of the trip, as I knew they would.  I knew we would be looking at dinosaur tracks in a river bed, and had a sneaking suspicion that the trails would not be very stroller-friendly.

I was right. 

The boys also had an adventure at a little place appropriately named “Big Rock Park” while Harper and I rested at the hotel Tuesday afternoon. 

Anytime Dane and Aidan do outdoorsy stuff with Brandon, I can bet that they are a bit more “adventurous” than I would be comfortable with them being.  

Again, I was right.

 

Aidan can do this with no problem, yet he finds a way to injure his thumb on a dumbell (more on that later).

Wednesday morning we got up bright and early, determined to see some dinosaur tracks before the heat was downright sweltering.   

Mission accomplished.

Harper loves dinosaurs over breakfast.

We also stopped by the little Creation Evidence Museum and admired more dinosaur artifacts intermingled with ancient Christian artifacts.  The Museum also boasted The Most Expensive Souveniers in History, which we did not partake of, much to the chargrin of the boys.  ($10 for a placemat-sized dinosaur poster, anyone?)

 

Look, kids!  A giant replica of a footprint that you can sit in!  

After the museum, we broke our restaurants-on-vacation rule and hit up the Chicken Express for some tenders and fried pickles on our way out of town.  We headed up to Grammy and Gran-Doug’s house for the rest of the day. 

(Quick nephew Zane update:  As of yesterday evening, he was off the ventilator and the tubes in his mouth and nose had been removed.  He had been breathing on his own with supplemental oxygen, and planned to be moved to a regular room out of the PICU if things continued to improve.