4.4.23 ~ The Dinosaur Place ~ inside Carnivore Cavern
Last week the little ones popped in with their parents for a quick spring vacation visit to Connecticut. Last year Tim & I came to The Dinosaur Place with Kat, just the three of us, but this year we had a chance to take the whole family! It was Finn’s first visit. Monty’s Playground alone kept him completely entertained.
Finn watches Papa (Dima) climb!
Finn found his own ropes to climb
he might have stayed here all day…
…but look who was waiting for us inside the the A-MAZE-asaurus maze
I took the stairs up to the observation deck to photograph the kids and their Papa finding their way through the maze.
Finn making his way through the maze
Kat followed by Papa
still wandering
when they entered the mouth of the dinosaur a slide deposited them here outside the maze
After a snack break the kids climbed a rock to wait and watch for a volcano to erupt in the pond.
the best seats
volcanic eruption
Then we continued along the trail around the pond and through the woods, spotting dinosaurs and other things here and there as we went along.
Kat & I were enchanted with the turtles we spotted, sunning themselves on this beautiful early spring day
utahraptor
we didn’t quite know what to make of this giant frog
was it supposed to be some kind of giant pre-historic frog?
it seemed so out of place in the midst of life-sized dinosaurs
protoceratops
Mr. Finn & and his new dino-friend
Finn lending Grandpa a helping hand ♡
With his new pacemaker Tim lasted a lot longer this time. He was walking for much of the three hours we were there. Larisa said the kids must have had a great time because they asked her if they could come back tomorrow. 🙂
Kat’s last day with us turned out to be the season’s opening day at the Dinosaur Place. We were there when the doors opened and were the first visitors of the year! It was a chilly, dreary day and we were sprinkled with occasional raindrops, but we had fun in spite of the dismal weather.
First we spent a lot of time watching Kat play in the T-Rex Tower at Monty’s Playground. While we were waiting for the attendant to dry off its surfaces we played a couple of rounds of hide-and-seek with our granddaughter. I can’t remember the last time I played hide-and-seek!
Then we started walking on one of the trails, noticing along the way just some of the 50 life-sized dinosaurs lurking in the woods. Kat followed the signs to Carnivore Cavern.
The first time through Grandpa was brave enough to go with her. They came out smiling but Kat was covering her ears and reported that it was VERY LOUD in there.
Then Kat announced that she was going to go through all by her self, and she did. 🙂
Then we found the A-MAZE-asaurus maze, complete with an observation deck, from where Grandpa and Grammy watched Kat try to make her way through. After a bit we offered suggestions. Good thing she knew her right from her left.
The exit turned out to be a tunnel slide, with a dinosaur mouth to pass through. Too bad we couldn’t scramble over there fast enough to see her at the top or landing at the bottom.
Then we followed the map to find the secret treasure, a large piece of quartz in the ground.
And some petrified wood…
And then Kat wanted to return to Carnivore Cavern to take me through. So I got a picture of inside the entrance.
And then it got very dark and then the dinosaurs in there roared. I managed to get a picture of one of the beasts!
After we that we followed another trail. I couldn’t resist getting a picture of a skunk cabbage down in the swamp.
It’s fun seeing dinosaurs outside and getting a walk in the woods in at the same time.
Kat resting with Grandpa
waiting for Grandpa and noticing a lot of moss behind her
observing an abundance of mosses and lichens
the king of a rocky moss-covered mountain
On the way out Kat and her grandpa got some ice cream at The Village Ice Cream Shoppe, the first customers of the season. 😉 A perfect way to end the day. I hope we will be bringing Finn here, too, someday soon. 💙
It was almost nine years ago that Tim and I came here with our grandnephews, Julius and Dominic. I’m glad to have pictures and memories from that fun day, too. Pictures here. Those little guys are teenagers now!
As we wandered around a corn maze on a perfect autumn day, we came upon an enchanting gourd tunnel.
Gourds are natural born climbers. They seek out anything they can reach to climb closer to the sun. They grow so quickly it can become a daily task to move the vines away from some places you don’t want them to climb on. And once a tendril gets itself wound around a hold nothing short of breaking the tendril off the vine will get the little curlicue to let go. Not even the death of the vine will loosen their grip much. ~ Karen Hundt-Brown (American Gourd Society)
While I looked, my inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose; I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life: in that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah’s gourd. ~ Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. ~ Henry David Thoreau (A Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers)
