Retracing Steps Through
History
Janet Kuypers
3/9/24
When we were little, we learned how dinosaurs
roamed this land so long ago in Earth’s history—
if we were lucky, we went on a field trip to the
Field Museum to see giant structures holding
together the bones of a Titanosaur, or even T Rex.
As we got older, we learned more of the history
of planet Earth, that a 6-mile wide asteroid left
the Chicxulub crater along Mexico, into the Gulf
triggering mega-earthquakes lasting for months,
leaving iridium on the land and ash in the air...
leading to the eventual demise of the dinosaurs.
But whether we are scientists or paleontologists
or geologists or chemists, it doesn’t matter, when
little kids want to play with toy dinosaurs and a
part of us remains a dinophile at heart. Is that why,
when I read the news that Texas draughts in 2023
led to even more dinosaur prints now discovered
in Dinosaur Valley State Park, that I knew I had
to check it out for myself? Though, knowing me,
and how work will always get in the way, I’d only
get around to visiting Dinosaur Valley State Park
once rains fell. But that’s okay, we got our feet wet
as we trounced from one petrified fossil to the next
(wait, we didn’t “trounce”, we delicately stepped
for fear of slipping and dropping huge cameras).
But we soaked it all in, examining the footprints of
creatures here so long ago before us that you couldn’t
help but somehow try to connect the pieces of these
long-ago lives to your own... until you then hear
a man yelling at his dog to top drinking the water
from one of those newly-rained on tracks. Afterward,
we looked at each other until I said, “but who can say
their dog licked water from petrified dinosaur tracks?”
And we laughed, then both looked back at dinosaur
tracks, as we still continue to try to connect the pieces.
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