Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Dinosaur Land

one of my favorite places on Earth is Dinosaur Land in Virginia's Shenadoah Valley.

they don't move, they don't roar, they just stand there in a true primeval forest and kids of all ages walk through them and have a wonderful time.

I was about six years old the first time I went there (thanks Mom) and well, the rest is pretty well known.  I had known about dinosaurs for at least a year or two before that, but being able to see life size replicas?  yeah, that's heaven!

it took me 30 years to get back there, and there are even more dinosaur sculptures now.  it's interesting to see how the views of dinosaurs have evolved.  this one to the left is obviously based on the old Aurora kit of the Allosaurus. the hand positioning is a bit different, but overall the influence is obvious.  I had most of those Aurora kits... guess which one I wanted the most?

if you said "Pteranodon" you would be correct. I never got that kit, but since I had so many others it really didn't matter. 

here we see two different pteranodons ("toothless wing).  the one on the bottom is the original and one might think it was based on the flying reptiles from the most awesome movie One Million Years, BC.

the new one is far closer to "real" but both looks great.  I love this place, and will get back there some day.

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