A Very Dino Day

This weekend I had the pleasure of accompanying some Fayetteville friends to Raleigh to see the Dinosaurs in Motion exhibit at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh.  We borrowed a child from one of their friends which helped lend an air of legitimacy to the fact that three grown adults were really excited about dinosaurs, and away we went.  I could tell when we pulled up that this was going to be amazing.

Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in the actual exhibit. Not sure why exactly, I doubt that the flash would damage the dinos, or that there's a lot of corporate espionage to worry about in the high stakes world of life-size dinosaur machines...anyway. The Dinos in Motion were dinosaur skeletons made out of metal and set up with pulleys and cables so that they could move.  

 

Some of them had levers to pull or wheels to turn, but honestly they were really difficult to pull or turn even for adults, almost impossible for kids.  The best ones were hooked up to video game controls and you move their heads or bodies up and down, side to side, it was cool.  I wanted to play with those even more, but I felt a little bad because there were children in line behind me asking their moms why the old lady wouldn't let them have a turn. (Ok, that didn't happen, but there were people waiting in line so I moved along quickly.) I wish I had one of these at home to play with...if only I had been able to take some pictures, I could have built my own (still bitter about the no camera rule, I stole this picture from the museum website). 

The special exhibit was actually pretty short, so we checked out the rest of the museum.  It was a nerd's dream come true.  We had to look quickly at some things because the 3 year old we borrowed had a short attention span, but it was great.  We checked out some more dinos (these pics are from my phone, so sorry if they're not so good).

This last picture was taken in a room with a glass domed roof and there were pterosaurs hanging from the ceiling, it totally reminded me of Jurassic Park.  There was so much more than just dinosaurs, but I didn't really take pictures anywhere else except for in the bug exhibit.  It was so gross and wonderful.

 The best part was that there were ginormus (that's a word) bugs everywhere.

Of course I had to pretend I was in Honey I Shrunk the kids...

And then there were these mutants...

Fabulous.

And to commemorate the day, I could not resist buying this at the gift shop.

You might be thinking, "Why Stephanie? It's just a mug."  To which I would reply, "This is not just any mug.  Check this out!"  I would pour some hot coffee in and...

You would then apologize and say, "You're right, that's the coolest mug ever."  

Don't worry about doubting me, just don't let it happen again.  

Sorry, dinos make me feel confrontational.  

The end.