'ello! my name's bruce!

Apparently the area near where we live is a spectacular area for fossils.  Who knew?  Well, I guess a lot of people did, but not this girl…. until now.  Yes, there is the Canadian Fossil Museum but an hour and a half away where they have the largest fossil of a mosasaurus in the whole wide world.  Even in the whole world wide web, even.  Naturally, we needed to head there and discover the discovery for ourselves.  And who better to explore with than some cousins and such.

The initial draw for the girls was the sparkly rock display.  And I did do a little coveting of the agate.  So pretty.

Two of the most fascinating parts of going to a museum type place such as this:  1) How fast the kids can blaze through the entire thing and end in boredom.

2) How fast they (males in particular) can find the tv/computers.  They had a Wii type game based on prehistoric critters.  That is how most of the time was spent by certain people groups.  Shocking.

I was very impressed by the miniature display of Ice Age 3 - Manny and Peaches.

And now the moment we have all been waiting for.  Some call it, uh, "the show" or "the big dance" (kind of like building toys in Santa's workshop….. instead of making shoes at night or baking cookies in a tree).  It is the magnum opus, the piéce de résistance….. The main mosasaurus himself, BRUCE!

Take lots of selfless, peeps, 'cause no one is going to believe this guy is for real…. for shizzle.  He is really rather large and impressive, so even though I write with mocking tones, good ol' Bruce is something to marvel at.

And then there was some other kind of sauras-thingy.  She was depicted in a death scene - how several other ravenous creatures tore her from limb to limb, or something of that nature.  Lucy was lamenting her death (billions, or something, years ago…. still has an amazingly traumatizing effect.  Oh, I just found the info…. it was a plesiosaur, creatively named Plesi.  Lucy was rather attached.

She got over it when the shark bit her knee cap off.

And then she forgot about her knee cap when he got her whole hand.  Lucys are friends, not food!!!

My favourite part was seeing that they used the term "spewing" when referring to volcanic eruptions.  It is a very descriptive and graphic word…. spew.  It made me happy.

A quick little jaunt to a indoor play structure by the museum - complete with some games of "throw the shoe and get people mad" and "chase my cousin until he punches me" (not really - no punches were thrown… just a little verbal assaulting).

We had a very quick snack picnic.  Quick because we saw some ominous looking clouds on the horizon.

Personally I found the drive back the most thrilling and awe-inspiring.  But that's how I roll.  We saw some thunderstorms coming just as we were about to leave.  And I do mean thunderstorms - as in plural.  You could see one from the north and another further east.  We headed a different way home in hopes to avoid them but that was pretty much impossible.  It did provide some needed car washing as well as some beautiful skies.  Some may say beautifully terrifying, but I'll just stick with beautiful.  And then, when you drive out of the storm and see the sun up ahead and the shining on the wet-everything…. especially the bright yellow canola fields up against the very dark sky.  Breath taking.  That'll whoop Bruce's booty any time.