Currently, the crews of the Morrison Natural History Museum and the Best Western Denver Southwest are manning a large booth in the lobby of the Alamo Drafthouse of Littleton, Colorado, taking part of the hype that has accompanied the release of the new Jurassic World movie. People have been clawing to get in and see the movie, and are pretty excited to see some awesome fossils and fossil casts right there in the lobby!
The Acrocanthosaurus arm clawing its way towards the Alamo Drafthouse building.
Fran, the most complete skull of Acrocanthosaurus ever discovered. A giant cousin of Allosaurus, this skull was discovered in Oklahoma, and would have lived during the Early Cretaceous Period, around 110 million years ago. The dinosaur was first described in 1950 by paleontologists J. Willis Stovall and Wann Langston Jr.
A Tyrannosaurus rex arm picks the nose of the Acrocanthosaurus. Now that's something you don't see every day.
Matt Mossbrucker, the entire Tally family clan, Justin Sewell from TheOneRing.net, and myself have been here since Thursday, talking with folks before and after their movie experience. Part of what makes the Alamo Drafthouse experience particularly interesting is they do a half hour preshow, where they pull awesome old footage and fun videos that relate to the feature presentation, so you get to enjoy a half hour of awesome old dinosaur footage as well! So definitely come on by and say hello, and enjoy the movie while you're here!
Matthew Mossbrucker, Director and Chief Curator of the Morrison Natural History Museum, poses next to the gigantic femur of the Brachiosaurus, with the Acrocanthosaurus skull slung over one shoulder and the Camarasaurus skull in the other. Imagine how cool you would look carrying that Brachiosaurus femur around in a hotel parking lot.
Merlin Barnes, Outreach Specialist at Dinosaur Ridge, our neighbors both at the Drafthouse and in real life.
I got to watch Jurassic World this afternoon, and I was very pleased with the movie, I thought it was very entertaining and a great movie overall! For the next few days, I'm going to spend as much time as I can talking about different aspects of the movie, both accurate and inaccurate aspects of it, for all of your reading and viewing pleasure! Some topics I plan to talk about include:
I had a lot of fun watching the movie, and I'm still having fun talking with the crowds of people entering and exiting the theater, hyped up and excited to learn more about dinosaurs and their prehistoric contemporaries! I'm also looking forward to using the movie as an opportunity to engage people about dinosaurs, and hopefully you who are still reading this post will, too.
Matthew Mossbrucker (left) and Greg Tally, co-owner of the Best Western Denver Southwest Dino Hotel, walk the Brachiosaurus femur out of the lobby of the hotel, on its way to the Alamo Drafthouse. We thought it could use a nice explosion in the background, so....
You've probably heard me mention the Best Western Denver Southwest several times here on the blog: they are the folks who are changing their hotel into a dinosaur themed natural history museum/hotel extravaganza! Well, the lobby is now complete, as is much of the rest of the dinosaur themed paraphernalia around the grounds! Just a few more things are awaiting completion, but the hotel looks fantastic! I thought I'd share some pictures of the hotel for you guys here! For your information, the credit for all of the photos in this post goes to the Best Western Denver Southwest, unless it is otherwise noted or there is a stuffed Triceratops named Pyg in the picture! But first, you should meet the stars of the hotel: the Tally family!
First, let's start on the outside of the hotel! Here are the initial plans for the outside of the hotel:
And here is who greets you now when you walk inside: Stanley, the Stegosaurus!
Now, the lobby only just recently finished construction. Until recently, the lobby entrance looked like this:
The lobby just finished construction and looks GREAT now, but first let's look at a few more construction pictures, just so you can get a feel for how far along everything has come! First let's take a look at the pool! In the far future, the room should be partially enclosed from the outdoors!
At the beginning of construction, this place looked like it does in the picture below with Meredith!
A few months later, we have their two children, Caroline and Joe Tally, talking about the future plans for the pool with a camera crew from the BBC!
Finally, here are some pictures of the pool from very recently, it is now finished!
At least, the pool itself is finished. Sometime starting next year, the Tally's will be hiring someone to create a tile mosaic of some creatures that inhabited the Western Interior Seaway (which you can read more about HERE). Oh....and did I forget to mention that the pool is in the shape of the seaway? Pretty frickin' awesome if you ask me!
Now, a few pictures back, I mentioned that Joe and Caroline were talking to a BBC camera crew. What was that all about? Well, as you can imagine, this whole dinosaur hotel idea has been pretty popular to a whole lot of folks, and has made an appearance across a very wide range of media, one of which was a BBC story about it! Check out the link HERE! I also have several pictures of the filming! First off, we have several pictures of the camera on Greg!
As you might have noticed in the video, the film crew also stopped at the Morrison Natural History Museum, my place of work! There they interviewed the director and curator Matt Mossbrucker, and you can see a few of those pictures below!
Here the film crew watches as Matt excavates part of an Apatosaurus skull named Kevin upstairs in the lab!
Another big break for the hotel came from The Oatmeal! We have a lot to cover here in this post so I won't take the time to delve into it myself, but you absolutely HAVE to check it out by clicking HERE: it is fantastic, I guarantee it! These three screenshots below are credited to The Oatmeal!
It doesn't stop there, though! The Tallys have also been featured in Entrepreneur magazine! Here is a picture of the article, and you can read it yourself by clicking the link HERE!
And on the lighter side of things: have you ever heard of the popular YouTube series My Drunk Kitchen? If not, make sure to check it out because it is hysterical: but especially make sure to check out the episode with the hotel and the museum in it! Suffice it to say, the Tallys have definitely found their way down many different avenues of pop culture!
I don't really find it that surprising: what they're doing is freaking awesome! Check out these murals that they are having painted on the back of the building! The first one is a sort of walk through time, featuring all sorts of fun animals! The close up below is of a prehistoric mammal called Uintatherium!
Here's another mural for you to check out:
As if that isn't enough awesome paleo art for you, hanging in the rooms will be copies of some of the watercolors made by an awesome paleontologist named Arthur Lakes who excavated a lot of cool things from the area, including some of the bones that we have in the museum!
There are also some awesome banners hanging on the poles outside the hotel!
These aren't the only reasons why the hotel is super cool, though: not by a long shot! Usually every week, they have a Bird of Prey show and a Jungle Lady show!
First some pictures from the bird of prey shows! First, a few pictures of Anne Price holding a barn owl!
Next, we have a picture of her holding a turkey vulture!
The Jungle Lady is really cool too, here are some pictures of the animals that she brings, too! Here's Meredith with the albino Burmese python!
And an albino hedgehog!
Here's a picture of a veiled chameleon named Prince Charming!
This post is really long: I am splitting it up into two parts! Check back next time to learn about what REALLY makes the dinosaur hotel a DINOSAUR hotel!
