Dinosaurs Alive!

Though I still prefer the old-school simplicity of Cave City's Dinosaur World, I'm looking forward to "Dinosaurs Alive!", the Louisville Zoo's forthcoming exhibit of high-tech animatronic prehistoric beasties.

(But will Kentucky's sizable Creationism contingent get their Archaeopteryx feathers ruffled by it? Read my article about it on Louisville Mojo!)

Dinosaur World

This Cave City attraction consists of a large wooded area in which someone has placed dinosaur statues of various sizes.

And that’s it. They don’t talk, they don’t move, they don’t light up or explode, lasers don’t project futuristic light shows on their abdomens, and you can’t ride them.

I have to admire the old-fashioned simplicity of such an attraction, and in this modern age where attention spans are dulled by video games and the Internet, I wish there were more places like Dinosaur World. For some of us, just gawking at a fiberglass allosaur is vacation enough.