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?

Dinos Alive

Disclaimer: Our visit to Dinos Alive was hosted, however all opinions and photos are my own. This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Little Hiccups.

Ever wanted to step back in time to when dinosaurs ruled the world? 

A time when the earth rumbled as Tyrannosaurus rex hunted for food. When pterodactyls soared through the skies. When the seas were home to giant reptiles. When pachycephalosaurus butted heads and stegosaurus trekked through what would become the Rocky Mountains. 

If you’re in Colorado, you’re in luck! Visiting dinosaurs is easy and you don’t need a time machine.

All you need is a ticket to Dinos Alive!

Dinos Alive is an immersive exhibition that takes visitors back to the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Triassic periods in a fun and educational way. Yes, fun AND educational!

Want to learn more, read on. Make sure you read to the end for my discount code to save on tickets!

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

Drumheller Dinosaurs

The town of Drumheller in Alberta, Canada certainly does love its dinosaurs!

Well, it is located smack-dab in the middle of a dinosaur and fossil rich area after all.

Driving through Drumheller when we first arrived we noticed colourful dinosaurs dotted around the town's street corners. The girls were pretty taken by these so we decided to go on a little dinosaur hunt and see how many we could find.

I wonder who he's waiting for

Dinosaurs

Last week we took Ava to see Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular at the Entertainment Centre.
Ava absolutely loved the dinosaurs, especially the baby t-rex (he was very cute for a carnivorous monster) and was mesmerised by the lifelike performances and special effects. She came home wanting to dig for dinosaur bones in our backyard. She's so sure that there must be some in the vegie patch!


I don't know what it is about dinosaurs but all kids seem to go crazy about them. I remember thinking dinosaurs were pretty cool when I was a kid and being jealous of my brother for having a collection of stegosauruses, tyrannosaurus rexes and diplodocuses!


One of my favourite movies as a kid was Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, a film about a paleontologist who discovers a baby brontosaurus in the jungle and tries to find its family. At the time (some time in the mid eighties) I thought that the dinosaurs in the film were so incredibly life like. Of course, since then animatronics have improved *slightly* so I'm sure that if I was to watch it now I wouldn't be so impressed - especially if the reviews on IMDB are anything to go by! I might have to try and find a copy for Ava to watch. It's a little more child friendly than Jurassic Park!


Ava has been interested in dinosaurs for quite some time now and they feature quite regularly in her drawings. Not quite as regularly as fairies and castles but they're up near the top of her "must draw" list. 
I thought I'd share some of Ava dinosaur drawings on Little Hiccups.
I love that no matter how scary the dinosaur is supposed to be Ava still draws it with a smiley face :)

Apparently this is the Daddy and kid dinosaur.
These seem to be a cross between a t-rex and a stegosaurus!