Land Before Time

Matt vs. Brachiosaurus

We visited The Dinosaur Place in Oakdale, Connecticut, this past summer, and I think the pictures speak for themselves. 

My kids were enchanted, and I was, too. The dinosaurs don't move, but the fact that they're life-sized makes this attraction so worth the two-hour drive into Connecticut. In addition to the hike around the park (on paved roads) to view all the different dinosaurs, there's a splash pad, a maze, and a truly awesome playground. There are more activities next door (for an additional price), such as unearthing fossils and panning for gold, but we did not partake in those. Mystic Seaport is also very close by. You could easily make a weekend of it.

Oh wait, I take it back, there is one dinosaur that does move - an animatronic Dilophosaurus that's tucked away in a cave was added to the park recently. There's a sign outside the cave that warns that this attraction may be frightening for small children, and after going in to view it myself, my conclusion is that they need to make that sign larger! That dinosaur was crazy scary! The Dilophosaurus was featured in Jurassic Park - you remember, it's the small dinosaur that has a frill on its face which fans open when it's provoked? And it spits venom at you? Well, this guy did both of those things (presumably water was used in place of actual venom), and my blood ran cold at the sound of its screeching. The thing looked positively evil!

Anyway, aside from that, The Dinosaur Place provides non-scary family fun.

'Tis the Season for Giant Pretzels

Not being a big beer drinker, I've never celebrated Oktoberfest before. But since having kids, the idea of downing a tankard of beer the size of my torso has become more appealing. So we decided to check out the Oktoberfest celebration at Bear Mountain this year, which promised good food, good music and good pedal-boating. 

Well, the food and music were good, but pedal-boating season had come to a close and there were no boats on the water. Either that, or the parks department had decided that drunk pedal-boating would be trouble and shut it down for the festival. At any rate, two out of three weren't bad. I had a wurst of some sort and potato pancakes with applesauce, and the kids had the kids' version of that (hot dogs and fries). We decided to polish off the meal with a Bavarian pretzel, which is basically a giant, overpriced pretzel. Are Germans all giants? What's with all the oversize food? I could barely get my mouth around the sausage. (Yes, I know: that's what she said.)

Some tips that we picked up from this trip:

1. Go early. We arrived at 11 a.m., one hour before the festival started at noon, and it was already way too late. The parking situation was already atrocious, and we had to wait on a long line of cars just to get into the alternate lot. 

2. Go to the Bear Mountain Inn, which is near where the festival is held. Don't go to observatory (which we did by accident) and don't go to lodge (which we did by accident). 

3. Bring a picnic blanket. There are actually tons of picnic tables available, but they get claimed pretty quickly. Anyway, it's nice to throw open a blanket on the grass by the lake.

4. Bring your kids' bikes. We wish we did. There were so many open, paved roads, perfect for your kids to careen out of control on.

5. Did I mention that you should go early? The wait for food was about two minutes when we started out. By the time we were ready for dessert, the wait was at least half an hour. We decided to skip dessert.

The nice thing about celebrating Oktoberfest at Bear Mountain when you have kids is that it's, well, Bear Mountain. There are so many kid-centric activities. We went on the carousel twice; it's only $1 per ride, and adults don't get charged if they have kids with them. 

The animals that you get to ride on are native to the area. My kids chose to ride on black bears. There were also otters, frogs, Canadian geese, foxes, rabbits, bobcats, wild turkeys, skunks and more. 

After eating, we went to the zoo ($1 suggested donation), where we saw some real black bears. They were pretty darn cute. We also got to see some coyotes and hung out in the reptile house for a bit. There was more to see, but at that point all the heavy food was catching up to us, and we decided to call it a day.

Happy October to you and yours!