Dinosaurs...

In Kentucky there is a place where dinosaurs roam freely. It's a place that beckons you from I-65. You see a huge dinosaur by the road and just wonder what is in that place. And you say to yourself, "Self, someday I'm going to see what is in that place." This summer was the time.

Claude and I went to Mammoth Caves several years ago. This intriguing place of amusement caught our eye and we determined to bring grandmonsters with us some day to enjoy whatever this tourist trap had to offer. We are not doing a 'Camp Christensen' this year. We have Katelyn with us while she works this summer. Aubrey and Paul are spending this summer with David. So we determined we would scoop up the mini-Marx's and have them explore "Dinosaur World" while we had Katelyn here.

We actually met Andie half way (Shelbyville) for dinner at Taco Bell Thursday, June 24th. The purpose of this was two-fold. The first was dinner with our grandmonsters. The second was to transfer ownership of Katelyn to Andie for a bit. Those purposes fulfilled Claude and I headed back to Sadieville and the Marx Mobile headed back to La Grange.

Katelyn would enjoy sharing those HUGE marshmallows that Nissa and Todd brought from Michigan with Hayden & Bailey. Then Friday morning they would get up and go pick a stash of blueberries to be frozen in the Marx family freezer and doled out through the winter in wonderful recipes Andie would try. Then Katelyn was supposed to have Bailey duty while Hayden had a doctor's appointment. The doctor cancelled so she just had more Hayden and Bailey time.

Friday, June 25th, Claude and I were invited to the HMB Gold Scramble Lunch at the Longview Country Club. We filled our morning with home chores and then set out for Georgetown. The lunch was a really good barbequed beef sandwich, potato salad, slaw, chips and banana pudding. They have a covered porch area that we sat in to eat our lunch overlooking the beautiful golf course. Claude introduced me to some of the HMB men that he works with that I had not met to date. It was just a great meal in the open air with good conversation. Thank you HMB for inviting us, we had a wonderful time.

Then Claude and I headed to La Grange. We were able to play with the mini-Marx's a bit and catch up on things with Katelyn.  In preparation for our dinosaur adventure, Hayden made a dinosaur out of his Lego's.

Then Claude and I were off to the Louisville Temple in the evening. We would spend the night in La Grange in preparation for an early departure on Saturday to Dinosaur World.

Saturday morning, June 26th, we all got up early and were on the road around 9am. It is about a 90 minute drive to Cave City from Andie's home. This was easy for Hayden and Bailey to understand because that is the amount of time they have to sit in car seats to get to Ma & Pa's home in Sadieville. Cave City is in the Central Time Zone and our part of Kentucky is in the Eastern Time Zone. This is always a might confusing when we go somewhere in Kentucky over that time line.

The kids settled in with their movie. Miss Bailey likes to hold hands with someone in the car. This trip she held Katelyn's hand (Okay, she thought it was my hand but I couldn't reach her with my seat belt on and Katelyn could. So Katelyn helped and Bailey was happy since she couldn't see in the back seat and thought she was holding Ma's hand. Thank you Katelyn for the assist on this trip.) and Claude reached back and held her hand part way.

I just love pictures and moments like this!!

We made it to Dinosaur World in fine shape with Claude driving. Much reading of Eclipse was accomplished as we journeyed to our destination. We were all happy to get out and stretch our legs.

The entrance to Dinosaur World starts you off immediately with a plethora of dinosaurs and dinosaur artifacts. The entrance has an enormous T-Rex standing astride the door. Hayden is standing my his foot to give you a sense of the size of this giant. There were several dinosaurs in the grass. Bailey is by the brontosaurus tail and then by a dinosaur skeleton adhered to the front wall of the entrance.

Thanks to Andie and Michael's ability to find a deal, I was able to purchase discounted tickets for each of us and Michael found a get one in for free card we used for an adult. Thanks Marx Family for being on the look-out for the deals that save money so we can do more of these kinds of outings. We gave our pre-printed tickets and our coupon and were given entrance into Dinosaur World.

Now folks, it was one very hot day in Kentucky. The temperature was in the 90's. The humidity was very high. We were so happy and blessed this location uses a path that is, for the most part, completely covered in trees. This means LOTS of shade. Thank heavens!!

They have a little playground with lots of dinosaur themed playground equipment. Across from that is a huge boulder with a Pteranadon on top. This is actually a cave with a projection system and it shows programs about dinosaurs. They run continuously. Bailey, who has a logged a bit of time watching Dinosaur Train, was just sure this was the time tunnel.

After a bit of checking out the movie and Hayden discovering he had this movie at home, we began our trek through the world of dinosaurs. Bailey was appropriately wearing her sunglasses.

Now I could never, in a million years, remember the names of all these giant lizards. We wondered about the choice of colors for some (there were even bright blue ones).  We wondered about the choice of skin for some of these behemoths (I mean really, how did they know they had a layer of perfectly formed bumps all over their backs). But our lot was not to fret about these particulars but to enjoy the possibilities of what the dinosaurs could have looked like. Here are some pictures of us enjoying the dinosaurs.

 

Here is Miss Bailey trying to 'be the dinosaur'.

They also had lots of dinosaur eggs with red baby dinosaurs hatching out of them. These were actually trash can covers. Bailey loved these very much. She just loves babies and eggs and all things that are 'yittle'. Sometimes she is such a girl.

We were informed by Master Hayden early on that he only wanted his picture taken with the dinosaurs he knew about. Fortunately, he has a LOT of knowledge in that noggin of his. There was no doubt he held to this principle when we found the T-Rex. He ran up to it and yelled, "Pictures!  Pictures!  Lots of pictures!!"

And there were MORE dinosaurs...

Then we hit the motherlode!!! Hayden and Bailey love the Ice Age movies. Manny is a favorite character. Imagine the joy of the 5 and 3 year old to find an entire mammoth family roaming through the woods. Manny and all his relatives to enjoy and see just how big they really were. What a thrill!!

 At the beginning of this blog entry I mentioned a HUGE dinosaur by the side of the road to draw your attention to this tourist attraction. The signs in Dinosaur World tell you this is a fictional dinosaur made up of parts of different kinds of dinosaurs. It is really there to cach our attention. But they have made a path out to the sign and we enjoyed a bit of a photo-op moment here.

There is a walkway out into a bit of a meadow-like setting. Here you can see lots of different dinosaurs together. The tree covered path we have been walking is actually around this so when you take the walkway you see the groupings of dinosaurs you have been viewing singly all from a different angle and more like they are roaming around together. This is way too long a sentence and should be broken into pieces. I'll let the reader do that!

I have tons more pictures but these will more than suffice for the blog.

After our walk we headed to the museum and strolled through it to get a reprieve from the heat. Outside the museum were several things to entertain us as we waited for the next 'fossil dig'.

One wall had pictures and cubby holes. You lifted the block to see the picture of a dinosaur. Then you felt inside the cubby holes and looked in them to find that kind of dinosaur. Katelyn helped Hayden and Bailey check out each picture and each set of cubby holes.

 

Then we turned our attention to the giganormous puzzle of dinosaurs. Bailey is holding just one of its many pieces so you can see how big it really was. Great fun for kids. Makes a puzzle lovin' Gramma happy to watch them enjoy a puzzle also.

Katelyn was sure it was time for Hayden and Bailey to learn about those penny smashin' machines you find at tourist traps. This was actually a really good exercise for Hayden.

Then someone announced it was time for the 'fossil dig' to begin. We secured our places in the line of eager little ones. A sifter was given to each child by the park employee and instructions were given about digging for fossils. They could find as many as they wanted. But they had to choose their 3 favorites to take home. Only three. And the dig was on!!

The reality is Bailey could have playing in the big sandbox a lot longer. Hayden carefully chose three fossils from his discoveries. Bailey had her three fossils chosen out of her discoveries for her. These were real fossils and bits of tooth and bone, etc.

Our last experience was having each of the kids climb inside the T-Rex head. I found this particularly amusing. Hayden went first and showed Bailey how to do it. They really had to wiggle a bit to get their heads and arms through. A bigger kid would only have managed their head being inside the mouth. Great fun for Hayden and Bailey.

The final stop at Dinosaur World was the gift shop. Claude always purchases one toy for a treasure. Hayden chose a stuffed Mammoth (Manny) and Bailey found a purple Triceratops. She also managed to find a baby dinosaur coming out of an egg. Her not-so-strong-willed Gramma did get her both items.

After lunch at Wendy's, we loaded back in the Marx Mobile and headed back to LaGrange. Here are our bunchkins with their dinosaur treasures in their carseats as we drove home. A bit hot, a bit tired, but very happy kidlings.

After stretching our muscles a bit, Hayden and Bailey curled up with their new friends to watch Ice Age. Hayden got a bug bite on his leg and so the basketball ice pack was on it to help the swelling and itching.

Then it was time for Claude, Katelyn and me to make our journey back to Sadieville. We did stop in Frankfort for some dinner at Chili's.

I'm ending this blog post with a few pictures of just the dinosaurs. I think a real photographer might enjoy some of the photo-ops offered by a visit to these replicas of a by-gone era. Enjoy...we did!