July 11, 2012.
This afternoon a little past two o'clock, my son phoned me saying that he and his family were suddenly thinking of going to the Pink Palace Museum to see some dinosaur bones in an exhibit, and when they thought it all out, they would let me know for sure. A few minutes later, a phone call came through to me -- they said that they would pick me up just before three o'clock.
I was doing something, and excitedly dropped it, and got ready to go. I knew it would be good to go to the Pink Palace, as I'm always ready to go to a museum!
We saw huge skeletons of dinosaurs. The meat-eaters had very large heads. The plant-eaters had much smaller heads. There was also a very small dinosaur that had big feet (paws?) that somehow made me think that the animal could have been very docile.
At one point, we saw the largest bone in the world, which is a spinal vertebra. It was very interesting to see all of those bones put together as skeletons. Some bones were made of some kind of plaster poured into fossil forms, to help to fill in the spaces. Some of these dinosaur fossils were found in Patagonia, in southern South America.
Twenty-some years ago my sister and I went on an auto trip out west and saw some fossil digs. The digs were covered with shelter of a wall and roof to keep the elements from disturbing the archaeological research. That trip was quite interesting and informing.
It was difficult to pull ourselves away from the dinosaur exhibit at the Pink Palace, but it was decided by the parents that we would see the IMAX show in the same building. I do like to see IMAX shows, very much.
The IMAX movie would be shown just after four o'clock and lasts forty-five minutes; it is about orphaned elephants and orphaned orangutans. The name of the show is Born to Be Wild. The movie alternates between the baby elephants and the baby orangutans to show
the comparison between the same age groups of these animals.
It takes a long time for these orphans to 'grow up' enough to be out in the wild on their own.
It turned out to be very moving to us, and I choked up with tears and cried a little, about eight to ten times throughout the show. Those little baby elephants were so helpless and so innocent, as were the orangutan orphans.
The people taking care of them were very loving, caring, devoted. There were men who were with the baby elephants 24 hours a day, sleeping in the same little room that each elephant was.
There was one scene in which the very young elephant was unable to relax and go to sleep, because he or she remembered how his mother had been killed by thoughtless poachers.
The male caretaker would pat and caress the elephant, and talk quietly to it to help it to relax, and the man put a large blanket over it as it finally lay down. Then the man went to bed in his own little cot in the corner. This was one of those moving events that made me cry.
The loving tenderness and thoughtfulness of the caretakers different little episodes sometimes made the tears come. This movie Born to Be Wild, is well worth the time and money to see it. Please do.
There were about fifteen or twenty elephants in one group. Baby elephants love to play, and the caretakers did that too. They would invent games that they and the orphans would play, like running after the several soccer balls, for instance.
The orangutan orphans were treated and cared for, like human babies are. The mothers in the wild always take very good care of them, holding them to their warm and motherly bodies all of the time when they're babies, and play with them so much of the time.
After the 45 minute show, we went outdoors, and it was raining quite hard! I had brought my umbrella -- it was in my handbag. My son had left his in his vehicle, so he used mine to go to the car and retrieve his umbrella. We had some fun in getting out through the rain and into the car. Two of the girls decided to dare it, and ran in the rain to the car. A lovely summer day it was!
And it was also such a surprising end to my day! I am so happy to be invited to go with my family.
I'll see you at the Corner Post...
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