Soooo… we may have been having a bit of a hard time lately coming up with new places to go. I mean we haven’t completely run out of the usual options of cemeteries, hiking paths, and antique stores, but sometimes it’s nice to do something a little different. This time I let my travel companion conspire with Google for something on the unusual side. And that’s how we ended up at the world’s most apathetically named theme park – The Dinosaur Place.

Neither one of us knew what to expect but there were rumors it was near an antique store so if we didn’t like it there was always a second option. Well! Things got very weird right from the start when we pulled into the parking lot and were greeted by a life size T-rex sporting sunglasses and a bottle of coke. Behind it there was a gift shop and what looked like maybe a miniature golf course. We went into the gift shop to buy tickets. Neither one of us were expecting it to cost $29.99 a head for adults. Thank God we weren’t teenagers as they seemed to have an additional tax at $33.99. We’d find out why in a few minutes. We forked over the dough and hoped for the best.

I feel it’s pertinent to note that it was no less than 86°F that day (that’s 30°c for the rest of the world) and I had remarked that “Maybe we should find something inside to do today…” I was assured it’d be fine. There was a “splash zone.” Whatever that meant.

So we walked in and right away there was a bathroom stationed there with a dinosaur in a dress for the ladies and I was a little too entertained by this I admit but that’s perfectly OK. Beyond that there seemed to be a very run of the mill playground for small children, though one of the things to climb on looked like a dinosaur skull and beyond that there were velociraptors on the roof of a nearby building. Cute. This was also where the “splash zone” was and in it there were gaggles of wee children playing in what looked to me like glorified sprinklers with some slidey bits. I wasn’t surprised by this turn of events. I mean when you build something in a dinosaur theme you probably have a very key target audience – wee children under the age of 8 or so. No matter. I could be an 8-year-old at heart, though I did wonder at first if this was worth two old farts like ourselves to pay $30 a piece for. And I could tell you with certainty it wasn’t worth paying an extra fee for a teenager to loiter here with the babies. They’d be bored out of their minds.

We looked at the little You Are Here map and started to amble around the perimeter. There were far less people beyond the splash zone. In fact there was almost no one at all. We were alone for most of our trek. That’s when we started finding random life size dinosaurs nestled in the woods just off the path and suddenly the whimsy overtook the both of us and it became worth both the money and the truly oppressive heat and humidity which was absolutely befitting the Jurassic era.

I took lots of photos but sadly had the wrong camera. I have one that’s great for indoor photos and one that’s great for outdoor photos. I have no idea why they function this way but having my indoor camera on such a bright day seemed to make most of my photos seem washed out. Not the mention it kept focusing on random branches instead of the dinosaurs. UGH. But even so I was absolutely delighted to see the dinosaurs scattered throughout the park like this. There were even a few you could approach and I can only imagine they would have made for some truly delightful family vacation type snaps if we had any kids in tow. I have to admit my heart may have melted a little bit when one of these ended up being my childhood favorite – the parasaurolophus (otherwise known as the dinosaur with a trumpet on its head) – lying on the ground with a nest of eggs. I squeed a little and pet her on the head for good luck before returning to our little jaunt around the park.

The park is not large and most of the walking paths are surrounded by fantastic shady trees and a body of water of some sort but even so the heat was killing me. I drank about a gallon of water and it still wasn’t enough. I had to sit down and rest about 2/3rds of the way through before I melted into the pavement. Even my companion who works forging iron in the bowels of Hell (OK not really but still) was pouring sweat, absolutely drenched, big droplets of perspiration dripping off his nose. I must have looked even worse.

I don’t think we were there long but it was enough. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was particularly amused in one of the two caves when an animatronic dinosaur spit and nearly soaked my companion who darted out of the way just in time. “Any kids who have seen Jurassic Park are going to be scarred for life getting spit on by that thing!” AND IT’LL BE WORTH IT.

When we got back to the gift shop we loitered there like delinquents because they had their AC cranked and I was overheating badly. When we got back outside it was still gross out there. We noticed an ice cream parlour and drunk from heat exhaustion forked over $5 for a scoop. I guess this is normal for amusement parks. I’d only been to one in my life when I was five and my well-meaning father brought me to Whalom. I remember one ride that entire day – the little helicopters. My brother was much older but didn’t fair any better as he was prone to motion sickness. This would be the last outing I remember taking with both my father and brother. Ah, memories. Anyway. I was too hot to really eat the ice cream. By now my body was rejecting water but I still managed to VERY SLOWLY eat it without throwing it back up. As I finished the last bite there was a sudden downfall of rain and I just opened my arms and almost yelled, “BRING IT ON!”

My companion was less happy about this as the rain didn’t cool anything down. In fact the second it hit the pavement it turned into steam rising from the ground. SIGH. From here we would move on to Nature’s Art Village which are the shops next to The Dinosaur Place.