The Museum of the Rockies is amazing! We ventured back into the dinosaurs realm first thing this morning and watched a video in which Curator Jack Horner (Yes, he’s the famed paleontologist, scientific advisor for the Jurassic Park movies, and inspiration for the character of Dr. Alan Grant.) takes us on a tour of the paleontology labs and specimen storage at the museum. Next was a gallery with several specimens of fossilized dinosaur eggs. We were pulled away from that by an opportunity to see a 3D tour of the Villa at Apolontis that has been excavated from the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius. After a short break we headed again to the Taylor Planetarium for the presentation Cosmic Happenings about the sky over Bozeman tonight. This morning we’d packed a lunch, so we set up a little picnic on the grass and enjoyed our chicken and black olive wraps before heading back into the planetarium for the presentation, To Space and Back, on the history and future of space exploation. Then we returned to the Jurassic era and amazing specimens of Triceratops skulls, the tail of an Edmontosaurus who would have been fifty feet linger than the biggest T-Rex on record, Catherine who’s fossil remains included soft tissue! And more modern history like the 1915 Sheep Wagon which was appointed much like our T@B, the 1922 Pike’s Peak Touring car, and 1930’s tourism in Yellowstone Park. Then back to the Roman Empire and the story of Vesuvius and beautiful artifacts from and reconstructions of rooms from the Villa at Apolontis. We’ve been back in forth in history today from dinosaur eggs to space junk. It’s exhilarating but our brains are overwhelmed. There’s so much more to see and do but only so much we can absorb at any one time. Time to return to the T@B and let all this new information sink in!
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