Did you know that just a little bit north of Laramie lies one of the greatest and most well-known, important fossil beds for dinosaur bones in the world? It's Como Bluff. I've long wanted to see the Fossil Cabin which lies along the old Lincoln Highway route and was once quite the tourist attraction. We passed it on our way to Casper for the dog shows late last month, and finally stopped by this historic road stop on the way home.

The cabin is reportedly made from 5,796 dinosaur bones! I didn't take time to count them, however.

It was a sad little place as it is now, deserted and forlorn, falling into disrepair. Haunting, really. It must have been a bustling tourist attraction in its day back in the heyday of the highway, complete with a gas station. You could fill up your car with gas and fill up on history all at the same time.

You can read more about it here.

A neighbor posted this link to Facebook a few days ago, and I thought I'd share it with you on the OtG site: Sand Creek National Natural Landmark.

Chimney Rock from the Wyoming side.

The cabin is about 5 miles further up this valley (or "park") and quite a bit higher.

Our beloved Alex on the back stoop of the cabin. How we miss our Big Boo!

He thought he was a lap dog too.

He is still with us in spirit and we see him eveywhere we look. He grew up going to the cabin from the time he was 10 weeks old.

Lynne has characterized our lives together into several big chapters: the "Expat" chapter, the "Colorado/Cabin" chapter and the "New Jersey" Chapter. She may have different names, but I think she is right. We spent about 1/3 of our 30+ years together working in Europe. First in Germany, then The Netherlands, and finally in France. Then about 1/3 living and working in Northern Colorado where we enjoyed our mountain land and built our "off the grid" cabin. Finally, the past ten years in New Jersey, which has been a fun work and life experience. 

A subchapter of the New Jersey experience is having "Mia" our 2010 Mazda Miata. 

Mia is now gone. I sold her earlier this week. It was just not a practical car for the muddy, washboard roads we'll drive while living at the cabin. And, it sure didn't make sense to keep her in storage over another winter. So, while I got a bit less than I think she was worth, she is gone. 

I'm sad. I'll miss commuting to work on the winding NJ backroads, and weekend drives with Lynne. But, all chapters must end, and it was time. 

Our land has always had a beaver pond. When we first bought the property back in 1988 there were active beavers. Something happened, not sure just what, but the beavers abandoned the pond and over the years it has actually started to silt over into more like a boggy meadow on one end. It's been that way a very long time.

We were shocked to hike down there this past trip to find it occupied again -- big time. Our little pond has tripled in size and we can longer reach it easily. The beavers had "beavered" away at tons of aspens. Chewed off stumps were everywhere. We now have a clearing where once stood an aspen forest. 

All that destruction to build this huge hotel of a beaver hut:

And this double dam:

In this photo taken from the beaver hut side of the pond you can see the clearing that's been made by taking out so many trees. It used to be solid aspen trees.

See that tree hanging over the pond on the end? The fourth photo down (above) is that same tree. Someone didn't have their engineering degree yet I guess because it obviously fell the wrong way. A waste of a good tree. A BIG tree.

Here's another example of bad engineering. This tree is almost there. But not quite!

It ended up resting on other trees. Pretty amazing. I am thinking that over the winter either the snow or wind will finally take it down. I bet that beaver was pretty frustrated after all that work!

I am glad we have beavers again but I wish they weren't quite so descrutive! I hope after all this work that they stay awhile and don't abandon it yet again!