George S. Eccles Dinosaur Park: Inside Exhibits

Tom had flown to Seattle to checkout some dental practices and to make a final decision as to whether or not he felt right about us moving to the Seattle area. He was flying in Saturday morning. I found about a dinosaur park in Ogden and decided that it would be fun to pick Tom up from the airport and head over there for an adventure as we like to call it.

As we parked we were able to see one of the dinosaurs from the outside exhibit, and Taylor announced to us that it was a chicken-nugget-saurus. We all busted up over that. I later discovered it was a giganotosaurus (JIG-a-NO-toe-SORE-us), which sounds extremely close to Taylor's version. Of course, we love Taylor's version best.

As we approached the building, we loved this cool sculpture of a dinosaur in the bricks. It looks so cool and makes me curious how they are able to do it.


Once inside, we were able to look at a ton of exhibits inside the building. Saber-toothed tigers are always fun to look at . . . and a little bit frightening to imagine.



After a few displays, we entered a room and got to see our first dinosaur exhibit. These dinosaurs are very life-like and even roared and moved a bit. It was very easy to imagine what it would have been like to come face-to-face with a real live dinosaur. SCARY!!


Next they had a huge display of rocks. I'm always amazed to see the brilliant colors of rocks. What a beautiful world we've been given! These rocks were all made into spheres.



Next they had animals petrified into rocks.


Then they had a few display cases filled with gems. Some of them were GINORMOUS! I had Madison stand by the case while I took the picture so that it was easy to see the size of the gems. They were so shockingly HUGE!!!





Next we found a display filled with food items.




We were amazed to find out that each item is actually a rock that has been shaped to look like food. It was a bit random, but really cool. They did a good job picking rocks that resembled each item so that they really truly looked like the food they represented.

This huge rock was beautiful to look at, especially with the light shining through.


Around the walls we found these displays filled with lots of the same kinds of rocks.

Amethyst:


Malachite: I loved the color of this one!


Salt Crystals: I'm so used to eating it that I forget it is a mineral that comes from the earth.


Pyrite:


Variscite:


Bruneau Jasper:


After looking a rocks and such, we finally found the indoor dinosaur exhibits. Can you guess who put Ryan up to this?


I'm sure I don't have to say, but of course it was Tom!! I found the bones of a woolly mammoth. I accidentally caught this random girl in the picture. Haha!


The dinosaur exhibits were interactive, and the kids loved going around doing the activities along with seeing the fossils.

Torvosaurus:


Allosaurus: Despite catching Tom's backside, I love the little boy I accidentally snapped a picture of.


Titanosaurus:


Gastonia:


Coelodonta Antiquitatis: Otherwise known as a woolly rhino . . . never heard of that before.


Triceratops:


T. Rex:


I asked the girls to go stand by their FAVORITE dinosaur so that I could take a picture of them with it. Of course, they all picked a well-known one.




Tom decided we needed a picture of Declan too. I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to touch this, but oh well . . . it is a cute picture!


After thoroughly enjoying the inside exhibits, we were excited to go outside to see what we had really come for!!