new & notable LIFESTYLE
TRENDS
EDUCATION
HEALTH
NEWS
The Dinos are Back!
D
uring a summer dominated by the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing you may have missed an equally intriguing look at part of our planet’s (and very likely your childhood’s), past: The David H. Koch Hall of (Dinosaur) Fossils—Deep Time at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Reopened on June 8, 2019 after a five-year, 125 million dollar renovation that was the largest in the museum’s history, the 31,000-square-foot hall features more than 700 specimens of dinosaurs, plants, animals, insects, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. The day-trip-worthy exhibit is permanent and free, and as I learned while visiting it with my sister and dinosaur-loving three- and five-year-old nieces (who both gave the exhibit a 10/10), it’s awe-inspiring and engaging for eyes and brains of all ages. The most eye-catching of these specimens is, inarguably, the Triceratops-eating “Nation’s T. rex,” one of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever unearthed. It’s also impressive, big and bad fossilized peers include the woolly mammoth, diplodocus and
continued on page 8
SEPTEMBER 2019
|
chesapeakefamily.com
7
