The Mammoth Site

We're staying at another Passport America Park tonight called Pony Soldier RV Park in Lingle, WY. The people who run it are really nice and bought it a couple of years ago.

I wouldn't call it a destination park unless you're going to spend time around Fort Laramie, but it's a nice overnight park for anyone in the area.

Today we started our trip toward the Denver area, and I had read about The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD which was directly on our way to this park, so we stopped in.

I knew it wouldn't take a long time to see the site, but we both really thought it would be a worthwhile visit. As it turned out, we were right, it was very cool.

This is a life-size model of the Mammoth.

The site has a museum attached and also gives guided tours of the site. Every year for a period of a few months, they have volunteers come into the site to assist in the ongoing excavation.

When we were there, we chatted with one of the volunteers for just a couple of minutes and he told us that they were just finishing up the digging for this year. (I guess the temperature and humidity are kinda critical for the work)

This site has most of the bones already found "in situ" which we found out meant they were left where they were found. To me it really adds a lot of validity to everything we were taught in school about these monster size critters.

I have absolutely no idea why Connie wanted me to take this picture, but she did, so here it is.
That'll teach her. hee hee

Tomorrow we head for Longmont,CO and St. Vrain State park where we'll be for the next 3 nights.

ttfn

Paul

actual post 7/25/08