There Be Monsters...
In the recesses of my brain there is a part dedicated to a very particular memory for when I was very young. I remember going to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and walking into the Hall of Dinosaurs and seeing this:
It was a huge towering image of a fearsome T-Rex and right in front of it, as you can see, was a real T-Rex skeleton fully mounted and terrifying. But I wasn't scared, I was enthralled. I went maybe once or twice, but even now three decades later it is burned into my memory.
So when the plans for Road Trip 2013 formed, we realized we had to stop at the Carnegie Museum. Some research showed that the Hall of Dinosaurs had been remodeled and the old mural, sadly, had been taken down (it was wildly inaccurate, among other things). Sad, I was worried that Isaac might not be as impressed as I was when I was his age.
Boy was I wrong.
The new display is approximately 1,000 better. I can say this because the new display is better than I remembered the old display to be, and that factors in the halcyon effects of childhood memories. The museum was awesome, starting with this:
It was a huge towering image of a fearsome T-Rex and right in front of it, as you can see, was a real T-Rex skeleton fully mounted and terrifying. But I wasn't scared, I was enthralled. I went maybe once or twice, but even now three decades later it is burned into my memory.
So when the plans for Road Trip 2013 formed, we realized we had to stop at the Carnegie Museum. Some research showed that the Hall of Dinosaurs had been remodeled and the old mural, sadly, had been taken down (it was wildly inaccurate, among other things). Sad, I was worried that Isaac might not be as impressed as I was when I was his age.
Boy was I wrong.
The new display is approximately 1,000 better. I can say this because the new display is better than I remembered the old display to be, and that factors in the halcyon effects of childhood memories. The museum was awesome, starting with this:
That is a shot of Isaac with Dippy, a full scale life restoration of the Carnegie's most famous (or second most famous) resident, Diplodocus Carnegii. Inside though was the real treat. We were greeted by hundreds of fully mounted skeletons, two T-Rexes (including the one from the original display which is the first T-Rex ever found), a Quetzalcoatlus mounted in mid flight, and hundreds of other amazing skeletons including ancient non-dinosaurs like this guy:
That is the head of Dunkleosteus, one of Isaac's favorite bathtime toys (his name is Dunk and he has a gruff New York accent). Isaac was so impressed, running from display to display until he hit this one:
I have to admit that it was so real that even though I knew I was in a museum I was taken aback for a second. The two massive mounted Nile Crocodiles were the two largest specimens ever found, measuring well over 24 feet. They were positively huge. And it was like this at every turn. The displays were so incredible that we could have stayed in just the Hall of Dinosaurs for two days. Before we left I-man tried his hand at looking for fossils:
It was, incredibly enough, even better than I remembered and probably the most fun I have ever had at a museum. Not only where the displays incredible, better than all other dinosaur displays I have ever seen, but I got to see them with Isaac. I am fairly certain that Mom, Nanna, and P-Pa weren't exactly sure who the kid was...