Last Saturday, Melissa took me to Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. I knew I’d be getting this outing as a Christmas present and I’d been looking forward to it for months. I wasn’t sure what the actual show would be like, but knew I’d love it whether it offered scientific realism or high kitsch. Happily for me, it tended more toward the former than the latter (insofar as a set of latex dinosaurs hulking about a sports complex can be considered realistic). Yes, I knew I was watching giant puppets/vehicles, but I found myself moving back and forth between fascination with the engineering of the creatures and engagement with the different “stories” that made up the show.
I first heard about this show when my friend Ellen took me to High School Musical: The Ice Tour (apparently colons are de rigueur these days in event titles) and we saw the giant promo sign. How could I resist? I called Melissa from the lobby, saying “please, please, please….”
What a blessing it is to have a partner willing to cater to my love of animatronic prehistory!
Saturday night, we saw this as we approached the arena.
Once we were indoors, we had to stop at the souvenir stand.
Presenting—ta-da!—Calpurnia (we’ve been watching Rome on DVD) the stegosaurus. She will be heading with me to Melissa’s this weekend to meet her new little friend Rowena, who came home with us after we visited Prehistoric Gardens in Oregon.
Then we settled in for two hours of dino-rific delights.
Scene One: Struthiomimus preys on hatchlings.
Scene Two: Stegosaurus defends herself from Allosaurus.
(We had to cover Calpurnia’s eyes during this sequence.)
Scene Three: Little Diplodicus gets in trouble…
… and mom comes to the rescue.
All’s well that ends well.
Scene Four: a battle for dominance between a pair of Torosauruses (Torosauri?).
Scene Five: the emergence of flowering plants. In the program photographs, these looked quite cheesy, but in real life they were lovely—not realistic, but a good match for the other-worldliness of the production.
Scene Six: flight!
Scene Seven: three quick and wily raptors search for food.
Scene Eight: one of my personal favorites—Ankylosaurus.
Scene Nine: baby T-Rex, every bit as foolish as baby Diplodicus, also gets into trouble.
And once more, it’s mom to the rescue.
Another happy ending!
*****
OK—I’m back to work now and done with my post-holiday lolling about, so this blog will once more be appearing regularly and will feature genuine knitting content soon. (Also coming up: The Drive Home.)
Happy new year!