Wyoming Dinosaur Center – Thermopolis, Wy

This was worth the money and the time if you love fossils and dinosaurs. It’s small, but really neat. Short. Good for kids.

I’ve been to many, many, many world class museums. Not kidding. They have a ton of marble and are fancy.

London’s Natural History Museum. Been there.

Paris’ Jardin des Plantes & Pantheon? Oui.

Chicago’s Field museum? Yep. New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Check. You get the idea.

Look, I’m a bit jaded. Been there. Done that. So when I tell you I liked the fossils at this little museum – I do have a somewhat decent tourist basis for comparison.

It isn’t everything. It’s just solid.

If you don’t want to believe just me, in 2019 Time Magazine for Kids rated it one of the World’s Coolest Places. So that’s something right?

So what did I like so much about it? I’m glad you asked. Let’s talk turkey (or dinosaur) about what (and why) I liked it so much.

It seemed REALLY historically accurate. Had unique pieces and replicas. And what seemed to be a very well-curated historical timeline. This was key for me. Well, how would I know? Good question. I don’t personally/professionally, BUT we are currently teaching the kid (Covid/RVSchool) and one of the sources we are using is Usborne Encyclopedia of World History.

When we walked through the Wyoming Center it matched the Encyclopedia. I may be “amateur hour” on the science/paleontology, but I loved that I both understood it and it seemed to be proceeding through the fossil history in a methodical way.

We’d read about trilobites. There they were …

We had read about ichthyostega.

Yep, they had him too.

Also some funny/creepy modern comments. Apparently these guys were one of the inspirations for the Sentinel Robots in the Matrix –

It was like walking through a timeline of pre-historic history with some REALLY great fossils. It’s a NICE collection.

Megalodon Tooth (here’s looking at you Shark Week)

It was a good time.

I’m really glad we stopped in.

Also, they have a dig site tour that is one of only three places in the world that have dinosaur bones AND tracks in the same place.

Like I said – worth the time and money. 2020 rates below: