Oct 15, 2023
Written By: J.Couch
From Austin we were going to head up to Dallas to meet up with some friends and see some family. We decided not to take the straight shot freeway up which is about a 4-Hour drive and we decided to take a more scenic route 281 up through Marble Falls and then to 67 and into Dallas. At some point in the past, I had read about a place in Texas called Dinosaur Valley State Park. I had marked it in Google Maps as a place that I “Want to go”. I had forgotten about it but realized that this was along the way to Dallas when I was looking at the map. We decided that we would stop and check it out. We weren’t really sure what it was but thought it was worth a stop.
We drove north through a lot of small towns like Lampasas, Hamilton, and Hico. We stopped in Hico to look around at a few shops and maybe find something to eat. Well on a Sunday and in a small little town, most things were closed and not a lot of plant-based options. Especially in Texas! Me grabbed a few snacks at the local grocery store and kept heading north, actually northeast from there.
We made it up to Dinosaur Valley State Park, paid the $8 per person fee to get in and then drove out to the Main Track Site to explore. The Palurxy River runs through here but at this time of the year it is dry. There is no river other than a dry limestone riverbed, with pockets of water here and there. In the winter time there is water through here and you would not be able to see all this. They say the best time of the year to see these is during late summer. These two dinosaur models below were from the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York. The State Park acquired these two for the park’s dedication in 1970.
We walked out to the main track site, they had it roped off so could not walk right up to them. I was kind of a little disappointed. Because the tracks were kind of hard to see and you had to use your imagination to see what they were trying to show you.
Back a 100+ million years ago this whole area was right along the coast line and a lot of the dinosaurs walked along the beach. In fact, this is the case up in the Denver area as well since the coast line was along there too. There is a palace called Dinosaur Ridge just along the front range where you can see dinosaur tracks there too.
We saw a lot of people walking down the dry riverbed to the south of us so we decided to head down towards the Blue Hole site. Along the way we did see more tracks and you could walk right up to them. The farther down we walked the more we saw. We were getting pretty good at this point to see them, even when they were not full tracks. We ended up walking down even further to a place called The Ballroom.
The Ballroom Site is the best place to see all the tracks, in fact it is kind of amazing to see. There are probably hundreds of tracks here. Sauropod tracks, large elephant-like tracks and Theropod tracks, smaller, with a distinct three-toed pattern. If you don’t go to any other place in the park, this was the best one to see.
It was very cool to see and I’m glad we took the time out of our trip North to stop by and check it out. It was a very cool adventure and I would highly recommend going and checking it out, that is if the water is low or the river is not running.
Thanks for wandering with us,
The Wandering Couchs
