My Jurassic Journey, Part 2

Saturday, after breakfast (why does coffee taste SO GOOD when you're camping? Or maybe it was just the very long train that blew its whistle every 30 seconds for what seemed like an hour in the middle of the night...) we put on our walking shoes and headed for the dinosaur museum. I was anticipating ravening hoardes of devil children, but it was actually not too bad.

(*Rant* It's actually not the kids I mind, it's the parents. Most of the families there were awesome and the kids very well-behaved. But there were a couple of parents I could easily have fed to the nearest Albertosaurus! *End Rant*)

Walking into the exhibits, we were greeted by a happy dinosaur family:

Then, into the room with the T.Rex and other predatory dinos...some serious teeth on those beasties! There was a display of several different teeth with some rather intense serrated edges. Very cool. The parents insisted that I get a sock picture with the T.Rex:
Nom nom nom! Unfortunately, he took the bait, and a bit of adventure ensued:

OMG, he's coming right for us!

Raaawwwwrrrr!


(Question: Is Dad trying to stave off the monster, or beat me over the head?)

(Yes, we did get some funny looks. Your point?)

Moving more sedately through the rest of the museum, we encountered all kinds of interesting beasties. The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle:

Tricerotops:

A stunning ammonite fossil:

(Wouldn't that make a great colourway for some sock yarn?)

Dino-burgers for dinner...this guy liked them really rare:

And Jar-Jar Binks:

It wasn't a huge museum, we walked through in under 2 hours. But totally worth the trip. And we finished just as a science camp or something, with several dozen kids, came into the building. Great timing! Before we left, Mom & I walked up to the viewpoint above the museum, where we looked through the binoculars at Dad looking at us (there was a lot of that going on all weekend)

I am in love with the badlands.


What blew my mind was that we weren't looking at hills, we were looking up at the prairie from inside it, from the bottom of an ancient sea bed. I could imagine walking into the water from above, what all the slopes and drop-offs would have been like from the water. It was quite a trip, even without any recreational pharmaceuticals!

More adventure ensued, but will have to wait a bit. We're off to take the niblings to the lake...which, I'm sure, will be an adventure worth its own telling!