Spring Break Day 4 Part 2

So about that tour guide....

On our fabulous little bus ride through the mountains, he got to know all of us a bit, like who we were and where we were from.  He found out we were from Houston - and of course asked if we knew who Dr. Bob Bakker was...and we were like "YES!"

Please see previous post: http://watchwillandjohngrowup.blogspot.com/2013/09/meeting-your-hero.html for more information on this fabulous fossil of a man!

Sidebar - we actually had every intention of visiting the Denver Museum of Nature and Science where Dr. Scott (Dinosaur Train) is the lead curator for Paleontology - but we found something BETTER!

For those of you who don't know, Dr. Bakker is the head curator of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and Paleo LEGEND...He was the lead advisor for the Jurassic Park movies, and Will has been to a few of his lectures in Houston.

Anyway, the guide advised us that Dr. Bakker spends every weekend in a small town a smidge down the road from Dinosaur Ridge called Morrison, and has his very own Laboratory on the second floor of  hole in the wall museum...so of course...we WENT!

We had absolutely NO idea what to expect when we got there.  It was a tiny little two story museum that looked to be actually a house from the outside...when we walked in the door, we strolled up to the admissions desk and as we were paying our way in to the paleontologist at the window, who did we see sitting in the corner?!?!?! DR. BAKKER!!!!!  

I (shameless) immediately said "Well hello Dr. Bakker!  We are here visiting from Houston!"  He asked if we had been to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and if we were members and we of course said yes and yes.  He asked Will what his favorite dinosaur was and then invited us up the his private laboratory!  

Will and I were GIDDY as we walked up the stairs where we found Dr. Bakker tinkering with a Dimetrodon skull and then his assistant, Dr. Matthew Mossbrucker told us all about the newest find in the US:  Apatosaurus Ajax - also known as Apatosaurus snout!  

Here is a nice full length article on the find:  http://shar.es/RipJW.  

Anywho, Mossbrucker and Bakker totally indulged us in all things dinosaur - spending at least 30 minutes alone with us discussing their finds, their careers, and of course, what their favorite dinosaurs are...

Will listened like a good little student, hanging on their every word...

It didn't take long for them to realize Will was a budding paleontologist himself and knew a LOT about dinosaurs - so they indulged us even more!  (Make sure your volume is up high - these scientists are soft spoken!)  Basically what the below conversation boils down to is Dr. Mossbrucker told us about his recent trip to Yale - and how they had Apatosaurus items mislabeled as Diplodocus and Camarasaurus and how he believed the other half of Apatosaurus Ajax is actually there in Yale's lab and he is working on getting it brought back to their dig site!

THIS is the Apatosaurus Ajax, and THIS is Will using a special power tool to dig it out!  The fossil is estimated to be 158 MILLION years old....ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT MILLION YEARS OLD!!!!  Their group has been working on uncovering this fossil completely for 11 years and now Will has had his hand in it too!

Prior to this day, I don't think I've ever seen Will blush - but blush he did - when he started talking to Dr. Bakker about his Dimetrodon...Dr. Bakker gave him his Dimetrodon model and we briefly discussed their find in the Permian but Will clammed up like the shyest kid you have ever seen. 

He was **Star Struck**

He had absolutely no problem talking with Dr. Mossbrucker, but when it came to Dr. Bakker he could barely manage a peep!

When we finally decided we should let them get back to work, Will and I checked out the rest of the museum...we found mammoth tusks...

A T-Rex skull...

A Mososaurus skull...

A Pterodactyl...

A Triceratops noggin...

A Styracosaurus skull...

A Utahraptor...check out that claw!

And a Stegasaurus footprint...

Here is the front leg of a juvenile Apatosaurus...

And of course his neck bones which they had found a while back - and the missing head which Will was working on!

This is a great picture because you can see the size difference between a T-Rex and an Allosaurus...

Here is a closeup of a T-Rex tooth!

Dr. Mossbrucker absolutely loved Will - so he proceeded to hook up with us again and take us outside to show us some more fossils....

We absolutely couldn't believe our luck - we didn't even know about this museum - and if we didn't have the tour guide we did at Dinosaur Ridge we never would have gone off script with our plans and made the trip there!  

Whew!  I think that is the most I have EVER written in a single blog post!

And to think our day wasn't over YET!