About 10 minutes from the Royal Gorge History Center lies the Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience, which is a great local museum and walkable park with dinosaur skeletons and animatronics. It was a snowy day when I visited so I had free run of the park to myself, which was awesome. One of the highlights was seeing the charred remains of an animatronic T-Rex that caught fire a few years ago, which they have lovingly re-named “Fried Chicken.” The Stegosaurus skeleton display here is a 3-D printed reproduction using the bones from the “Ms. Spike” Colorado discovery as a guide. It’s an amazing application of an innovation which allows the public to enjoy a fully-realized dinosaur and lets scientists learn everything they can from an undisturbed fossil find.
Canon City, CO – Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience
