HOUSTON Why is every child on the planet so fascinated by dinosaurs? Maybe it's because the beasts are huge, but they're also extinct, so they can't come get you in the middle of the night.
Regardless, kids seem to love posing in front of the many huge dinosaur skeletons in the new Hall of Paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in the city's Hermann Park.
It's obvious they'd prefer to climb aboard the dinos, but their parents are doing a good job of stopping them from doing that while they, the parents, read the wall placards explaining how the beasts lived.
The vast, new hall features more than 60 new skeletal mounts in action poses, combining some real bone with realistic casts of what the bones would look like.
A lot of the skeletons, I'm told, were pieced together with bones from a number of similar animals found in the same area. (It's hard to tell whose bones are whose in such a circumstance.)
On the walls alongside the dinosaurs are similarly posed portraits showing what the dinosaurs looked like on the outside.
The exhibits include a Tyrannosaurus rex with what the museum says are the most complete hands and feet of any T. rex ever found, along with some T. rex skin.
There's also a triceratops mummy, with some of his skin on the wall, too. He's been named Lane, and he's 70 percent real triceratops — a particularly high percentage.
You'll also find wall after wall of beautifully preserved fossils, more than 100 preserved trilobites and an exquisite collection of petrified prehistoric poop. (I can hear you clapping with glee.)
My favorite exhibit is probably the Glyptodon, a prehistoric armadillo. It's huge. If you were to hit this with your car, your car would be the one upside down on the side of the road.
You'll also find a section of ancient petrified tree cross-sections cleverly named Jurassic Bark, along with an exhibit on human evolution, comparing the bones of early hominids — they were about as tall as today's 5-year-olds — with present humans.
Find out more about this exhibit and others at hmns.org. General admission, which includes the Hall of Paleontology, is $15 for adults and $10 for children.
After you visit the Hall of Paleontology, if it's less than 100 degrees outside, you might want to stop by Hermann Park's other key attraction, the Houston Zoo, to see the new elephant enclosure that opened last fall.
The pachyderms now play in a nice, big habitat. On the recent day I visited, they were wallowing in some mud in an attempt to keep cool. I felt like joining them because it was, in fact, more than 100 degrees outside.
The Houston Zoo, by the way, is involved in conservation efforts for elephants in the wild. They're majestic beasts, and during my visit, I learned that an elephant brain, averaging 13 pounds, is the biggest of any land mammal's.
So, if you can stand the heat, go check out the big brain on the elephant.
Admission is $13 for adults, $9 for children and $7 for seniors at houstonzoo.org.
The most convenient place to stay to see all this is the Hotel Zaza (5701 Main St., hotelzaza.com/#houston), just a couple of blocks from the natural science museum.
Even in the heat, it's a short trek, and you'll enjoy the hotel's glamorous vibe and the excellent food in Monarch restaurant. (I highly recommend the veal schnitzel, an elevated version of the German classic.) Summer rates start at $199.
The hotel's right next to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, another excellent museum to cool off in.
Also remember that if you're staying downtown, the Museum District can easily be reached by light rail.
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