Dinosaurs Alive at Union Terminal Museum Center Cincinnati, OH

I was talking to some friends in the Akron area recently. We were talking about how, as we have gotten older, we have developed a love of traveling, and taking road trips. We love doing this sort of thing. We love finding a fun place to go and explore, researching it, mostly on the internet, and then getting in our cars to go!

My friend Tim and I talked about how often, you hear about a place. It sounds great. You do some research. You find the web site for the place, and it just doesn't do the actual place justice. One of my favorite places not linked to Kentucky at all is Sedona Arizona. I have yet to see a web site that translates how fantastic that place is.

Tim brought up the Museum Center at Union Terminal in Cincinnati. I had checked on the place before. I had always heard good stuff about it in the past. I thought that I had googled it before, but I didn't really find anything out about it that made me want to go there immediately.

Tim said he recently went down there and the place was amazing.

Actually, places like Union Terminal are exactly why I wanted to start blogging. Over the last several years I seem to keep discovering places that are great, but there is just not enough information about them out there. Great places should have at least a colorful official web site!

I am surely not going to knock the museum web sites associated with Cincinnati. They are fine, slick, and professional. Most people will get all of the information they need from the sites. You can find hours, gift shop and exhibit info, etc.

The actual physical locations are so spectacular though. Their official web representations don't do them justice!

We recently travelled to the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal to check out their "Dinosaurs Alive" exhibit. After 2 recent trips I have already mentioned (involving museums in Indianapolis and Ann Arbor) I am on a dinosaur kick!

Cincinnati is such an interesting city. It has endless history. My buddy Nate who lives there is always bringing up something cool and historical that I didn't know. Its like the area guards its history. I almost feel like the area doesn't want the rest of the world to share in its fascinating past.

I have passed by the Terminal building many times. It almost seems strange now that I've never stopped there. The building reminds me of the Hall of Justice form the old Super Friends cartoon- actually, I just looked up the Hall of Justice on Wikipedia and it says that the Hall WAS based on the Terminal! If I would have known that I would have stopped by long ago.

So, we get to Union Terminal and buy a pass for the "Dinosaurs Alive!" movie and "Dinosaurs Unearthed" exhibit.

The Terminal is huge and spectacular. There are several other museums here, including a history museum, a children's museum, and a museum of natural history and science. I think that, at the moment, you can buy a day pass for those museums.

The movie was good. The theater has a planetarium feel to it. It is projected on the 5 story screen, and takes up your entire field of vision.

The movie and exhibit both talk a lot about new discoveries concerning dinosaurs. Feathers are the big thing at the moment. Also, most in science now feel that dinosaurs are technically not extinct, classifying birds as dinosaurs.

The movie talked a lot about dig sites, research, etc. I must admit, I was hoping the 5 story screen would be utilized to showcase some 5 story CGI dinos. There was some of that, but not as much as I had hoped for. The movie was fun and informative, but it would have been just as enjoyable on a smaller screen, or even on a TV screen.

The animatronic dinosaurs in the exhibit were like life sized toys. In fact, most had control pads where you could push a button to hear and see them roar. They looked scary, and surely will give many children nightmares.

There were many skulls, skeletons and other fossils on display. There were some very cool fossils showing feathers.