Full Dinosaur Quest

Utah is a dinosaur lover’s dream!  There are so many amazing museums in that state, all within a few hours of each other. It makes sense, since a lot of the large dinosaurs of the Jurassic period came from the lands that are now Utah & Wyoming.  Many towns around these museums use dinosaur branding on their signs and businesses as a...

On the campus of Michigan State University sits this awesome (but under-appreciated) museum.  In many ways, it looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 1950s, but that’s part of its beauty.  We made an appointment to visit well in advance but realized upon arriving that we were the only people in the building outside of the...

Like the Everhart museum in Scranton, PA, the Anniston Museum of Natural History only has one dinosaur skeleton on display…but hey, when it’s the right dinosaur, who cares?  The museum's major focus seems to be more on birds, which does fit in a way since birds are believed to be direct decedents of dinosaurs.  There is a large branch...

The Stegosaurus at the Science Museum of Minnesota is an unusual one.  Much like the specimen in the Burke Museum in Seattle, the skeleton is almost completely whitish gray, which may indicate that they were dug out of areas with similar types of mineral deposits.  (Possibly clay and limestone.)  The fossil’s length and giant tail...

Honestly, the Virginia Museum of Natural history didn’t look like much from the outside, but we were pleasantly surprised at how much it had to offer.  The dinosaur displays were beautiful, including this Stegosaurus, which has the rare quality of having all of its ossicles intact.  (These are the bony “pebbles” that make up the...