I’ll take any excuse for a fossil road trip. There are so many quarries, museums, and other roadside paleo stops that even after a year of criss-crossing the west, I haven’t yet seen them all. And earlier this week, I realized that I was running out of time to visit the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science before my next book – A Date With a Dinosaur – is due. I didn’t care that the drive was ten hours both ways.  I had to see the museum’s unique displays of Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous creatures for a few key points in my book. Here are a few shots from my all-too-brief trip to the museum galleries.