Dinosaur Gardens, Michigan

[MKIRKALDY@aol.com]

To add to our childhood remembrances of dinosaurs past, I was 
pondering what and where the dinosaur park was which I used to 
beg my father to take me to on our summer vacations in northern 
Michigan.  Those life-sized cement dinos had counterbalanced my 
terror/fascination with the theropod/sauropod battle in Fantasia, and 
I loved to climb _into_ the Brontosaurus to see the heart.

In today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in an article on a book about 
America's roadside kitsch called "Fun Along the Road" by John Margolies,
THERE was a picture of my Brontosaurus, complete with the little wooden
stairway that I remembered, at Dinosaur Gardens!  The blurb says the 
walk-in statue is 85 feet long!  

Being in a nostalgic mood, I looked up Dinosaur Gardens via the 'Net
and found it in Ossineke, Michigan, just outside of Alpena, gateway to
the Upper Peninsula.  I phoned them, inquiring about a brochure
and what the park currently had.  The lady said that they had 26
dinosaurs, including having added a Velociraptor last year!   The 
Brontosaurus still has a heart.  I forgot to ask if they were going to
tar and feather any of the statues.

Great and fond memories of a happy childhood in the company of
dinosaurs as 4th of July approaches.

Mary
mkirkaldy@aol.com