A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the visit by "Scotty", the T. rex from Eastend, Sask., which is on display currently at the Soo Line Historical Museum, and mentioned the fascination that kids seem to naturally have for dinosaurs.As I've thought about it since, there were instances when I was a kid where I was exposed to some of the best source-places for dinosaurs in the world. One summer our family took a vacation trip to Drumheller, Alta., and we saw the badlands, the "hoodoos" and of course toured the fossil station there.More recently I've seen a car commercial that shows the cheesy giant sculpture of a T. rex that is located at Drumheller, and it brought back memories to me of a rainy summer day, and posing by the exact same dinosaur model to have pictures taken as a child of 10 or 11 (I think).I also recall taking pictures with my cheap Kodak Instamatic camera of some of the sights there, including the "world's smallest church", which was in the same area, and a swinging bridge, and viewing some of the grey rock that formed the "badlands" area.That trip made an indelible impression on me, but I think more so on my brother, who was really into dinosaurs to an extent I never was, at least when he was a kid. Today I have doubts he would even remember that trip, never mind his fascination with the "big lizards".More recently, as a parent, we took our kids to Brooks, Alta., a number of years ago for one of our summer vacations, and the badlands just north of that town are actually a World Heritage Site for dinosaur bones, better in some ways than Drumheller is as a source of dino bones.My younger daughters have said they don't really recall much from that trip, other than the photos that I took of them there, but there is one point I should make here. I think the important aspect is to excite the thirst for learning and for knowledge, and a good way to do that is to expose them to sources of knowledge, such as this exhibit that is currently showing at the museum.Not only that, sometimes it's better to revisit some of these things as an adult when you can more fully appreciate them; I know I found that when we visited Brooks, and I think for the many Weyburn residents who've never been to the museum, they would get a lot out of it by seeing what this fine facility has (like the Charlie Wilson Silver Collection) as well as the feature exhibit on "Scotty", which will be here until the end of November.
