During the 45-minute drive to Discover the Dinosaurs, I gave Nathan a talk about Emphasizing experiences over material goods, which went something like:
Me: Okay, before we go, I want to tell you that we can spend money to do fun things, but we aren't going to buy a toy, Okay? Because we just had Christmas, and you got a lot of toys, and we don't need any more, Okay? We only have one earth, and too much stuff is bad for our earth, and we won't have anywhere to live if we destroy the earth owning too many things, Okay?
Nathan: Stop saying 'Okay.'
Okay, so we got there, and we paid $13 for our parking experience, and then another $25 for our tickets to the dinosaur experience. And we were off on our Jurassic Journey:
The base ticket price got you in to see several animatronic dinosaur displays, like this one that my kid just looks thrilled about:
Some of the displays were interactive. Kids love pushing buttons:
After approximately 5 minutes of button-pushing and admiring things that were included with our ticket price, Nathan spotted a bouncy castle! He had to go there!
The bouncy castle required an additional fee!
And it was one of those things where the "additional fee" attractions could only be paid for with tickets, which had to be purchased at a separate booth, in the hopes that using this other currency would distract people from how much the attractions actually cost, seeing as none of us could possibly perform the complicated calculations required to figure out, If tickets cost $2 each, and this ride costs 3 tickets, the actual monetary cost of the attraction is ... Well, hell if I know, Who am I, Albert Freakin' Einstein?
Also, the line for the bouncy castle was 45 minutes long. But I just joined the line of other overwhelmed, overstimulated kids and defeated parents, because it's winter in Chicago and what are you gonna do?
My kid in the bouncy castle:
Next we forked over another 3 tickets to do a "panning for gems" activity. Even though anybody who grew up in California ("The Golden State") knows from the 4th grade unit on the Gold Rush that this device is actually not a pan but a sluice box:
We saw these guys for no additional fee:
Next, it was off to the mines:
Now, when you have just forked over $6 so your kid can put on a plastic hard hat sprayed with generic Lysol, enter a box with a vinyl curtain made to look like a mine, and pull 10 cents worth of polished rocks out of stucco holes, you realize you have abandoned all the ideals of your pre-parenting life, whatever those ideals were.
Next Nathan and some other children made a stunning discovery of a nearly-intact dinosaur skeleton:
This was a photo op where you could climb inside the dinosaur's mouth. We waited in a 10-minute line for this photo op, but when we got up there Nathan said he was too afraid to go inside the mouth. So he stood next to it:
We used our last 3 tickets to ride the T-Rex, which I think was a highlight:
Here's the video version:
The next few shots were taken at the little playground where you could sit on cartoon-y dinosaurs:
Then we touched some dinosaur heads and whatnot:
Nathan sitting on velociraptor, made the famous in Jurassic Park:
I made him take a picture in front of my favorite dinosaur, the stegosaurus:
And a parting shot with the T-Rex:
All jokes about overpriced-ness aside, it was a fun day and a nice change of pace for a winter afternoon. Nathan cooperated with the Emphasize experiences over material goods principle like a champ, and didn't even ask for a toy from one of the many booths and stands set up to sell material goods. And so, even though I was $65 poorer at the end of the day, I left feeling proud that Year of Less Consumption was off to a roaring start.
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