IN THE PIPELINE:

Summer is back in earnest. The kids are out of school for the most part, and so I know many of you will be partaking in one of our country’s best rites of passage — the family road trip.

Last week, we headed off to a speck on the map called Blanding, Utah. It’s about 12 driving hours away, and so we split the journey into two days, which left plenty of time for the important stuff: several National Parks, a hike at the Amboy Crater, and some slower travel along as much of old Route 66 as we could find.

We went on up through Arizona’s Navajo Nation until we hit our spot about 15 miles outside the tiny town of Blanding. What brought us there was a chance to watch and work with some of the most impressive minds and bodies I’ve ever been around. They are members of the Dinosaur Institute, an organization within the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

They are the core of the museum’s dinosaur program, and they are on a mission. In this specific case, the mission involves returning to work on several quarries, which have produced some spectacular dinosaur fossils. The higher goal? Make Los Angeles the preeminent dinosaur center of the western United States.

If you were casting a movie and needed a colorful, eclectic group of adventurers and explorers, you could do no better than this bunch — think “Indiana Jones” meets “The Dirty Dozen.” They are led by Luis M. Chiappe, curator of the museum’s department of vertebrate paleontology and director of the Dinosaur Institute. A world-renowned paleontologist and author, the famed Argentine’s discovery of thousands of dinosaur eggs in Patagonia is one of the most significant paleontology developments in history.

Curatorial Assistant Aisling Farrell is a lithe, spunky woman of about 30, as pretty as her Irish accent. Armed with a master’s in taxonomy and biodiversity, she plays a vital part in the expedition — made clear by her intense workload.

Stephanie Abramowicz is an illustrator and fine artist who creates artwork of the dinosaurs while still managing to work in the field. Volunteer Susan Russak is there simply because she feels the calling. And Lab Supervisor Doug Goodreau blends brains and brawn into one strong physique, thus creating a fossil-collecting machine. There are others out here, too, including a hard-working team from the museum’s educational division.

For a solid month they’ll be slaving. Some new members will shuttle in, but the core of the team is here the entire time. In the field, the work is backbreaking. Carefully brushing, hammering, chiseling, digging, all the while being careful not to mar the precious, 150-million-year-old treasures.

Then there’s the excavation process, which first involves covering fossils in strips of burlap, creating a plaster “shell” to protect the bone (the only real way it’s been done since the beginning). Then, somehow, these hundreds-of-pounds parcels are moved across mountains to waiting trucks for the ride home. Again, it is all backbreaking.

As one bone is prepped — an impressive Sauropod humorous perhaps 5-feet long — Chiappe pauses over it.

“Tonight he spends his last night under the stars,” he offers in his rich, Argentine accent.

There is also primordial poetry to all of this, it seems. Next, we’re trudging across the soft red sand, off to examine some Stegosaurus tracks. Nearby, bits of Stegosaurus back plate lie strewn across the ground. They will be examined and cataloged later by another crew.

Nights are spent under billions of stars, resting, eating good food and enjoying good wine. At sun up, it all starts over.

Tom Thornbury, chairman of the board of the Softub company, is here too, with his son, Cory. Thornbury underwrites trips like this (the team T-shirts read “The Thornbury Expedition”), and his passion for paleontology is evident. He gets right down in the dirt, digging and brushing. His effusive spirit is a wonderful force in the desert, and his generosity will be appreciated for ages.

There are wonderful things happening at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. But without what happens out in the desert, it wouldn’t be possible. As you watch the museum’s dinosaur exhibits like Thomas The T. Rex take shape, keep in mind what brought those bones to Los Angeles; these amazing people — this crazy collection of geniuses, dreamers, artists and doers who perform the impossible in the middle of nowhere, just so we can enjoy the dinosaurs. As the museum evolves in the next year or two, it’s going to leave a huge footprint in many lives.

Paleontology plays a big part in our household because it’s what our son has wanted to do since he was 3. He’s gotten me so interested that I plan on following the progress being made by the Dinosaur Institute. Their work is too important to ignore, and — after all — who doesn’t love dinosaurs?

CHRIS EPTING is the author of nine books.