High Flying Fun

I haven't had the opportunity for weekend wandering in recent history, so I'll look back at a trip from a few months ago!  We had planned to fly to Omaha to visit the zoo, then spend the night and make a nice weekend getaway out of it.  Unfortunately, the weather raised its ugly head, as it does all to often when we plan flights, and rain kept us from making it on Saturday.  But we figured it was all good... we could still make a day-trip out of it.  So Sunday morning we got up bright and early and...

Source: http://www.kansastravel.org/sternbergmuseum.htm

Didn't go to Omaha. Nope.  It was raining again (in Omaha) which would prevent us from being able to land.    Well fooey.  So we thought of all the other day-trip destinations we'd ever thought of going to and... most of them were covered in rain too!  But we found one bright spot, and so we headed west, to Hays.  Why Hays?  Because there was rumored to be a lovely dinosaur museum there! The Sternberg Museum, through Fort Hays State University (http://sternberg.fhsu.edu/).

So we hopped in the plane, flew about an hour flight (to a location that would normally be about a 3 hour drive) and landed at the little airport there in Hays.  The FBO (fixed base operator- kind of a airport terminal for private planes, they provide fuel, a place to park the plane, and often have other amenities to offer pilots) provided us with the use of the courtesy car so we could get around town.  We lunched at Napoli's Italian Restaurant, which was very good (so if you're ever in Hays, you must try it!) then continued on to the museum!

Inside the museum were two main levels: one that included all of the fossil exhibits, and another upstairs that held a life-size dinosaur diorama. Some of the dinosaurs even moved, which I didn't find out until the T-rex almost took a bite out of me!! (ok, not quite).

The Tyrannosaurus moved it's head back and forth and roared... the baby hadrosaur chewed on it's grass.  None of the other dinosaurs did much, but the diorama was still cool, with some large pteranodons flying overhead. The painting in the background was that of a prehistoric beach, as most of Kansas was under water during the late Cretaceous period.  

The diorama continued into a tunnel that was also a ramp to the level below. It was made to seem like you were entering the deep sea, and there were models of some of the ocean-dwelling monsters of the time, things like plesiosaur and mosasaur.  Fish and reptiles that make Jaws look like a pet goldfish!


Once we exited the tunnel, we were back among the main museum exhibits.  We got to see lots of fossils (mostly of the sea-faring type) but there was also information about Africa, natural history, weather, and geology.  Of course, my interest was mostly in the fossils, so that's where we spent the most time! My favorites included:

The famous "Fish-Within-A-Fish" fossil.  Mmm, lunch! 

A nice mosasaur specimen. I like mosasaurs, because they're one of the biggest, most "dinosaur-like" fossil that you'll find in Kansas.  I am even the proud owner of a real-live (dead?) mosasaur tooth! 

These crinoids were very cool, all fossilized together at the bottom of the sea.  It looks like something from an alien planet!! (It would also make a cool desktop wallpaper, no?) 

Then we moved on through the geology exhibit,  admired the mammoth skeleton, then viewed the "Peanuts" exhibit on weather... old cartoons with Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the gang and their take on weather and other natural forces. 

We left the museum to return to the airport and were just in time!!  South of Hays, near Dodge City, was a nice little thunderstorm popping up.  It was out of our flight path, and about 20 miles away, but it was interesting to watch from the window.

Then as we flew along, the airplane's radar displayed little rain showers popping up all over the place!  We were afraid we'd have to put down somewhere short of Wichita, but we made it in and the rain never even reached the airport!  Whew!