When first in America in the 1970’s, I thought dinosaurs were just some mythical cartoon invention, akin to Disneyland, and with no real basis of fact. So it was with some surprise that I first looked upon giant dinosaur bones in a national park display somewhere north of Park City, on a family outing led by mentor and friend Doug McD.
Imagine my thrill last week to finally meet up again with
those beloved names from the past, Dianne and Doug, and to again be treated to a
dinosaur adventure, this time at ‘Thanksgiving Point’, at the point of the
mountain at Lehi.
The outing started mid-morning, and I was accompanied by
Launceston long-time LDS, co-missionary and friend, Cathy. After I mistakenly lead us off course on the
Trax light rail, my friend and I alighted at the end of the West Valley line,
and found ourselves in a windswept tarmac looking at the snow-clad Oquirrh
Mountains and waiting to be collected by Dianne in a luxury black Lexar.
Fortunately we found we weren’t waiting alone.
We also found great entertainment watching the talented
skate-boarders putting on a show, jumping from concrete bench to bench, with
one skater movie filming the entire show from his own moving board!
And there was a whimsical display of wind-veins, somehow
reminiscent of other pole-mounted art works around central Salt Lake City,
wittily celebrating the element of flight embodied in Utah icons, historical
events and natural phenomena. Fly
fishing, the first airplanes, tornadoes, feathers, and deseret the pioneers’
honey bee with its distinctive hive.
But finally we reached our destination, and Thanksgiving Point, we were told, was named, and the Museum donated by its benefactor Alan Ashton, in appreciation for a fortune that flowed from his part in the invention of the early, popular computer word processing program ‘WordPerfect’.
The
museum is part of a larger recreational complex aimed at family fun and
education, and after a delicious lunch we were ready for all the fun and
education we could get, as we made our way through the pre-historic rock
displays and primitive fern, conifer and club-moss gardens to our first
encounter with the mammoths.
Clearly Doug was ready to take on anything, but others had a more demure approach!
It
was wonderful to see the sheer size and diversity of animals related to the
dinosaurs.
Also fascinating to see the interesting ways of displaying information, with many interactive exhibits, and inventive creations. Among many were a large sand and water labyrinth for children to recreate and populate primitive landscapes, full-scale puzzles for dinosaur jigsaws that were clearly more appealing to the parents than the side-lined children, and even a weighing scale that told me I was about as heavy as a Proceratops, which is obviously far heavier than I should be! No argument about that! Nice stripy tail though!
A wonderful day for us all, and oh to have old bones as good as these in the rain!!
