My evening started with meeting my friend Heather at the Bear’s Tooth for, as she puts it: “the best selection of vegan burritos in town.” And I have to say, I do agree: they are quite good, even with my lack of appetite. We had a lot to catch up on, so spent a good hour talking about both of our personal roller coaster rides.
We left the restaurant with plenty of time to get to the Sullivan Sports Arena – or so we thought. Little did we know there’s be a line of cars, pilled bumper to bumper for blocks, all waiting to get into the parking lot. Man, I hate traffic. I didn’t even have my book with me. I should know better by now, and should always have it with me.
Finally, however, we made it to our seats. I am not rich so could not afford the “good” seats. Even the “not-so-good” seats were still $30 each, with a $7.50 fee tacked on for whatever reason. We ended up sitting up in the balcony section – but I didn’t mind at all. This gave us a view of the entire show!
And what a show it was! Oh My Gosh: they had flashing lights, moving sets, booming thunder, majestic music – the works. To borrow a quote from the movie Jurassic Park: “We spared no expense.”
The show opened with a paleontologist giving us the history of our planet starting back at the beginning of the Triassic period. One at a time, moving up thru the years, he introduced us to the various time periods and their respective dinosaurs. He talked about digging for bones, Plate Tectonics, volcanoes, mass extinctions, and all sorts of plants and animals. It was quite educational, assuming one actually listened to the talking.
Most people got distracted by the leading characters, however. It’s hard to listen to a boring old lecture when there is a 23 feet tall Tyrannosaurus Rex roaring at the crowd. Let me assure you, those life-size dinosaurs were incredible!
They had 8 dinosaurs recreated at life size:
1 Plateosaurus (10’ tall),
1 Stegosaurus (18.5’ tall)
1 Allosaurus (14.5’ tall)
1 Brachiosaurus (36’ tall)
1 Ornithocheirus (with a 38’ wing span)
1 Ankylosaurus (12’ tall)
1 Torosaurus (13’ tall)
1 Tyrannosaurus Rex (23’ tall).
They also had 5 dinosaurs that were “worn” by actors:
3 Utahraptors (8’ tall)
1 baby T-Rex (7’ tall)
1 Liliensternus (7.5’ tall)
To give you an idea of what was involved in the making of this show, I’m going to borrow some information from their website to share with you:
Each large dinosaur contains: (based upon the construction of a Torosaurus)
433 feet of hydraulic hose
971 feet of fabric
433 feet of foam
53 gallons of paint
7 kilowatts of power from 12 truck batteries
1094 yards of cabling in each body
24 microprocessors control movement along with
15 hydraulic rams and 6 hydraulic motors each
Each large dinosaur:
weighs 1.6 tons a piece (standard family car)
runs on 6 roller blade wheels
To operate one dinosaur, it takes:
A Team of 3 people:
1 Driver,
2 Voodoo Puppeteers -
one operates head and tail gross motion,
one in charge of minor movements: mouth, blinking and roars
If you get the chance to see this show, I highly recommend you do so! It’s worth every penny.
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