A T-Rex Named Sue

For Tyler's special birthday treat we took him to Redding, California to check out the special T-Rex exhibit. The "T-Rex Named Sue" exhibit was on loan to the Turtle Bay Exploratorium for a few months and we thought Tyler would REALLY enjoy seeing the most complete skeleton of a T-Rex. After seeing the exhibit I can't say if it was Tyler who was more excited or Zach.

There is sort of a six degrees of separation thing going on with this dinosaur. Zach's grandfather taught the paleontologists who found Sue. When we visited South Dakota for his funeral we met one of the men who found Sue and he gave Zach a behind-the-scenes tour of his museum and gave him the full story of finding this dinosaur. So, Zach was VERY fascinated and felt somehow connected to the story.

I must say that it was quite amazing to be in the presence of a T-Rex...even it was just bones. You can imagine that if that were alive and chasing you...you'd have no chance. It was just unreal to be in the presence of something so large and magnificent.

We weren't allowed to use the flash in the museum, so a lot of the pictures turned out blurry. Zach and Tyler were really stoked to see Sue.Lucy and I found a cool place to hide... We also saw an animal show at the museum. It was really neat. The birds were trained to fly to the trainers. This porcupine backed himself down the log. Tyler said it was his favorite part of the show.
At the end of the day we walked across the Sacramento River on the Sundial Bridge. It was beautiful and the bridge is really neat.

I just love these guys

We went through the museum one last time before we left for the day. We checked out the LEGO exhibit. It was amazing what some people had built out of LEGOs. The most amazing was a skeleton of a T-Rex. I was so nervous that the kids would touch it!

We really enjoyed our trip to Redding! Surprisingly enough. :)