Waking up in Ulaanbaatar

Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs director Thea Boodhoo is documenting our latest mission in the Gobi. (You can help us cover some of the costs.)

It’s 8:19am in Ulaanbaatar and the sun is shining. Our team of four arrived from the US via Incheon last night around ten, to a long customs line and a cold parking lot. Ganbold, who drove the Moveable Museum last September, met us at the airport in his new Prius with an extra drive to accommodate all our luggage. We got to the Bayangol Hotel, looked over materials for our mission, and fell asleep around 1:30am.

We’re back in Mongolia for two weeks to meet with government officials in the Gobi, drop off our new bilingual outreach materials, and scout a location for a new dinosaur museum and research center at the Flaming Cliffs, Mongolia’s famous orange sandstone landmark where the first dinosaur nests were found almost a century ago.

I’ll be making updates along the way with photos from the Flaming Cliffs and the local communities, so check back here and follow our Facebook page for more frequent check-ins.

Our team from the US includes:

  • Bolortsetseg Minjin, President & Director, Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs
  • Thea Boodhoo, Officer & Director, Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs (myself)
  • Walter Crimm, Architect, Walt Crimm Associates
  • Daniel Chure, Paleontologist, Dinosaur National Monument (not here representing the National Park Service in any official capacity)

And we’ll be picking up Binderiya Munkhbat on our way to the Gobi this morning. She hosted many of our workshops last September and a few since. She’ll be running two more in Bulgan, the town closest to the Flaming Cliffs, while we’re location scouting, and helping with translation.

Til next time, here’s another shot of our view at the Bayangol Hotel:

View from Bayangol Hotel, Ulaanbaatar, at sunrise

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