After checking into my room at the Claridge and wolfing down
a pretty late breakfast (1 p.m.) at Black Bear, I plotted my route to the
Dinosaur Discovery Site, where fossilized bones and footprints of the giant
creatures were on display.
The museum is on the site of Johnson Farm, where
huge slabs of rock with the dino-prints preserved in them were found during
leveling of the land a dozen years ago.
A check with Google Maps revealed there were two ways to get
there. The first was the fast way, on Interstate 15. The other was a more
scenic route along a surface street called Riverside Drive. That’s the route I
decided on, so I was able to pass through business areas, as well as open areas
with terrific geologic scenery.
It wasn’t hard to find. There is an admission fee, of
course, but it’s very reasonable: $6 for adults, $3 for kids 4-11, and free for
kids younger than 4.
The first thing you do is sit on some folding chairs and
watch a video on a small TV set operated by the guy who collects the admission
(he points the remote control from his counter), which I thought was rather
amusing. Hopefully they eventually will be able to get a larger flat-screen to
make the experience a little more profession. But what the heck, it works.
There are some large glass-cased displays at the start of
the “tour” that are quite informative, with lots of scientific information and
pictures. Mind you, there are not a lot of pictures of actual dinosaurs, so
kids might be a little bored … even adults who aren’t really into reading
information.
What you do get to see are tons of rock slabs full of
dinosaur foot impressions, tail markings and swim tracks. It’s pretty
incredible when you think of it – dinosaurs become more real whenever you see
evidence of their existence, and it’s amazing what we’ve learned over the past
century about these extinct creatures and ancestors of today’s birds.
I’ve always wanted to see dinosaur tracks; here’s a taste of
what I finally was able to experience.
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| River bed rock field |
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| Rock slabs with dinosaur tracks |
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| Eubrontes footprint |
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| Grallator footprint |
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| Dilophosaurus model by Cliff Green |
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