Dinosaur Ridge

Did you know that Colorado is home to the BEST dinosaur track site in the entire country?

A site where you can see where raptors, therapods, and giant sauropods left their mark on the prehistoric landscape millions of years ago. A site where you can touch real dinosaur bones both in situ and in the museum. A site with stunning views over the rocky Colorado landscape. Sign me up, please!

Recently I visited Dinosaur Ridge to check out the dinosaur tracks and prehistoric fossils, and today I'm sharing it all with you.

Located in Morrison, just 20 minutes west of Denver, Dinosaur Ridge is a must see for Colorado families and visitors alike, especially if you love dinosaurs. And let's face it, don't we all?

Dino Days at California Academy of Sciences

California Academy of Sciences has long been one of our favorite museums to visit in the Bay Area. With the addition of its new Dino Days exhibit the number one place has been locked in! You know we can't go past some good dinosaur fun!

Dino Days is a fun exhibit featuring five life sized animatronic dinosaurs that roar and move in a realistic way, a climb on t-rex that makes for fun photos, two dig sites for future paleontologists to practice their skills, and plenty of informative displays. 

Royal Tyrell Museum

You may remember that I mentioned that we visited a dinosaur museum last week in the Canadian Badlands.

I'm slowly getting around to catching up with my travel posts so it's time for a look at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller - or the Dinosaur Museum as the girls like to call it.

The girls were both pretty excited about visiting the dinosaur museum. When asked what they were looking forward to seeing in Canada before our trip they'd respond in unison with "Dinosaurs!". This answer was usually met with looks of confusion from others until I'd explain that Alberta is a major dinosaur fossil site. Large numbers of dinosaur bones and fossils have been discovered in the Badlands area since geologist Joseph Burr Tyrell's (the museum's namesake) 1884 discovery of the skull of a large carnivorous dinosaur later named Albertosaurus.

The Royal Tyrell Museum is located just a few kilometres from the location of that first fossil discovery. The girls had been hopeful that they too would find their very own fossils while we were in the area. No new fossil finds for us but we did see a lot on display in the museum, along with plenty of other interesting exhibits. Here's a look...

Dinosaur models greet visitors in the Cretaceous Alberta room