Because Dinosaurs!

Calmer Half and I have some interests in which we both can geek out happily, and some areas of interest where the other half of the couple has no joy and even less interest in the subject. 

Sometimes he humours me, and despite his "get from Point A to Point B as directly as possible with no stops unless critical to health or logistics" attitude, he'll exude restraint at me while detouring to see a giant meteor crater. (Wheee!)

Sometimes, he doesn't. 

That's where friends come in. This morning, after rack pulling 208 pounds (2 reps, 3 sets), I eyed the lat pulldown machine and decided I'd had enough of being adult for the day. So I texted CV Walter. "Wanna run away with me and see dinosaurs?"

She texted very sleepily back that she needed to find the shower, and then her clothes, in that order. So give her 45 minutes. I texted her the equivalent of happy noises, and then gritted my teeth and did my lat pulldown exercises.

I then went over to her place, kidnapped her from all her intentions, and took her to...
coffee first.

What, do I look like a monster? I'm not going to inflict random road trip on people without coffee!

We may have had coffee and gelato for breakfast at The Duck (it'll always be Odd Duck Coffee to me), but we did at least have breakfast bagels with egg and salmon and capers and cream cheese so it wasn't all caffeine and sugar. 

Then we drove off to Seymour, TX, to see all the dinosaurs! And the dimetrodons, which are, just read the sign NOT DINOSAURS. (Yes, it's in all caps. Posted right next to "Rules To Be A Dinosaur".) Just ask any six year old boy, That's Important.

Some museums are full of themselves and think they're there to "raise the public consciousness" and you're gonna get lectures on cause of the moment and fashionable crises while you're just trying to have fun. Not the Whiteside Museum of Natural History: this place is rich in artifacts and feels like it was made by a bunch of scientists letting out their inner six-year-olds. 

Right down to the little plastic dino toys hidden in some of the exhibits. And the way the T. Rex is positioned so she looks like she's looking at you no matter where you move.

And they even have the actual lab where the paleontologists are working on the actual fossils brought in from the dig with the cool toys at the end of the building, with large windows so you can see them. one of them may have caught me squealing over the miniaturized sandblaster the size of a ballpoint pen, and came out to geek out over the awesomeness. Next thing you know, we're crouched over a juvenile dimetrodon's clavicle, exclaiming over the amazing job of freeing from the stone, and the person who's put in all the work to make it look so good is showing off the nerve attach point, and a hole where something bit all the way through before it went from fresh meat to fossilized...

Utterly cool. 

I stopped on the way home and bought fresh raspberries and roses for my Calmer Half, and he seems just as happy that he missed all the excited female squeaking and squealing and gigglage. 

See the exhibit warning label: