Time is running away, and there’s not that much time left until next weekend’s Reptile and Amphibian Day hosted by the Dallas-Fort Worth Herpetological Society, but there’s time for a subject currently near and dear to my heart. Namely, dinosaur gardens. This is what I get for dreaming last night about building a vivarium arrangement in tribute to the classic Lost Spider Pit scene from King Kong. I may even pull it off this weekend, and if I do, there WILL be photos.
To start, I could refer you to the single greatest tribute to Mesozoic Era flora I have yet to view, the Cretaceous Garden exhibit at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, but that wouldn’t be fair. It’s not fair because ongoing renovations mean you won’t be able to see it again until next year. When it reopens, though, it’ll probably be as glorious as it was when I visited it in 2006.
If you’re open to travel, and you can get out there before the end of the month, Trey Pitsenberger brought up Plantosaurus Rex, the current exhibition at the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco. The way my schedule runs right now, I have no chance of getting out there before it closes on October 21, but that shouldn’t stop anybody else.
A bit closer to home, we have permanent exhibitions in Austin, with the Hartman Prehistoric Garden set up to take advantage of dinosaur tracks and indigenous animal fossils. With the heat breaking in Austin, it’s actually safe and sane to go outdoors when the big yellow hurty thing is in the sky, and I speak from experience when I say that now is the time to head out that way. (Twenty years ago, I heartily looked forward to road trips to Austin for the Armadillocon science fiction convention held around this time in October, and I pretty much stopped going when Armadillocon moved to the end of August.) In fact, try to make a road trip of it and head down to the San Antonio Botanic Garden for its Dinosaur Stampede exhibition (PDF) while you’re at it.
Much closer to home this time of the year, the Heard Natural Science Museum in McKinney is hosting its annual Dinosaurs Live! exhibition, complete with a Halloween wander through the dinosaurs on October 20. I generally tell myself not even to consider events the weekend before a big show, but this might be worth hitting just as a break after repottings and trimmings.
The weekend after the Halloween at the Heard event, we have something peripherally related. Namely, the Dallas Palaeontological Society and the Palaeontological Society of Austin host the 30th annual Fossilmania in Glen Rose on the weekend of October 26. Speaking as a longtime attendee, this isn’t just an opportunity to view and purchase fossils, both plant and animal, but it’s an excuse to visit Dinosaur Valley State Park and view the famed Glen Rose dinosaur tracks. Again, because of the lack of crippling heat, wandering around and viewing the scenery, especially alongside the two 1964 World’s Fair dinosaurs at the front of the park, gives a lot of inspiration for palaeo-based gardening.
Finally, no guarantees on this, but the Czarina and I have some personal good news involving upcoming museum events. Namely, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas just announced that it plans to open a month early, on December 1. Seeing as how we married under the Protostega skeleton in the old Dallas Museum of Natural History a decade ago next December, we’ve been contemplating having some sort of event for our tin anniversary at the Museum. Anybody interested in coming out on December 28 to celebrate?