June 6: Russian Dinosaurs

I went to lunch with Casanunda, then raced home so Rich and I could go to the Russian Dinosaur Exhibit. It was to leave in Mid-June, but now they claim it will stay in Old Sacramento till the end of the year, due to "overwhelming response". Overwhelming? All I keep reading is that no one knows it's there and no one goes. I think maybe they just don't know where to go next, and so they're waiting to trade with the Mammoth exhibit, currently in San Jose.

These dinosaurs come from the Russian Paleontology Institute and ohmighod, are they ever spectacular. One goes up a flight of stairs in the Pacific Stables building, and then the center is a two-story iguanodon. One can go upstairs level with this beast's head and get a different look. The skull is a model, but most of the bones on this and the other specimens are real. The fossils range from pre-reptile to some birds and bird eggs. There's also a couple of nests of dinosaur eggs. There's a Tyrannosaurus bataar adult and another juvenile.

I'd dearly love to go back. In fact, I thought it would have been nice to take Sam's class, especially after I talked to them about Sue, the t-rex in Chicago. I can just imagine. They'd be climbing the statues, probably. The price is off-putting, though. I know it costs a lot to get this lot here, but $19 means one doesn't just "drop in" when one is downtown! Rich got the five "coins" that say "I visited" and I picked up a few postcards printed in Russian. I'd have liked a book in Russian, but they were all English and I had most of them.