"Stroll through Raven Hill Discovery Center's "Exploring Beyond Jurassic Park" and learn about the Earth's Geologic History before and after the dinosaurs. The 350' walkway begins with the formation of the Earth and ends with the appearance of modern man. The exhibit includes real rocks, fossils, and trees and sculptures of extinct species." 

The above description from the RHDC website assumes you came from the Museum, Music Garden, or parking area to enter the walkway.  If you went the roundabout way I took, you end up coming in through — well — the end — where man shows up, and working your way backwards to the beginning.  For some reason that reminds me of my Coyote Poems page in the Poetry & Pictures section here in my website.  Anyway, let's take a look at "Beyond Jurassic Park." 

As mentioned, there were also sculptures of extinct species.  Although, some of these look rather familiar, which leads me to suspect they are at least kissin' cousins to some of the animals we have in our presence today.  Maybe not.  But that is one of the so many things you might come to the Raven Hill Discovery Center to increase your knowledge about. 

The two pictures above, taken while walking the Jurassic Park path, are not sculptures, of course, but I thought the bark lent itself to good contrast and interesting images.  As we move along the timeline, those of you who saw the movie Jurassic Park will certainly recognize the names T-Rex and Velociraptor.  The signs make me wonder if they were actually contemporaries of one another as the movie would imply.  Seventy million years is a long time.  Yet another good question that could bring one out to RHDC, perhaps with a follow-up search on the Internet.  Hmmm — the Internet — I wonder where it would appear in this display — likely smaller than a grain of sand, way back where I started. 

If you are someone with a scientific inclination, you might be wondering about my placement of some of the pictures in relationship to the signs.  Well, that would be because I am an artist, not a scientist.  While I am trying to keep the line relatively stable, my main criteria is if images look nice next to one another.  Still one more good reason to visit RHDC and see things for yourself.  Here are a number of photos chosen primarily with an artistic mix and match motivation. 

I could not share a northern Michigan site without including the picture of the Petoskey Stone (Coral).  Finishing up, I am going to jump from a mere 750 million years to billions of years ago.  With a quick look back at the path, then the beauty and reality of modern flowers, we will wrap up the "Exploring Beyond Jurassic Park" adventure.  I did not include every picture I took, and skipped a time period here and there, but you have seen a significant portion of the journey. 

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