Totally Cool--Dinosaurs!

We took a way cool day trip yesterday, over to the Natural History Museum at the University of Michigan. Little did we know that U of M has the biggest dinosaur exhibit in Michigan. Sophia was chomping at the bit to get over there once she heard where we were going.
























The immensity of the fossils on display was amazing. The first big skeletons you see upon entering the gallery are a mastodon (the smaller one--lived 20 million years ago) and the mammoth (larger, lived 7 million years ago, and is the precursor of the modern elephant).




















Anneliese seemed more amused by the museum than Sophie. She was giggling and running from display to display. This Allosaurus head fascinated her, and I loved this thoughtful pose I caught without knowing it.

















Finally, we saw a "fossil bed " with an Edmontosaurus ( a huge duck-billed dinosaur) and the size again was overwhelming. You can READ that a dinosaur was the size of 2 school buses (or however big it was) but then, when you see the bones, it blows you away. At one point, we stood next to a sauropod leg (I imagine it was an Apatosaurus--formerly brontosaurus) and it was almost twice my height (I'm 6'1"). No wonder Sophia was overwhelmed.

















Well, the day was totally cool, but we had to leave before the tour as the girls were a little overloaded, sensory-wise. I did tell Dave that we needed to go back, just the two of us, as there was so much to explore in the rest of the museum. Yep, I am a total dinosaur nerd, and proud of it!!