the Writing Essay: Science September 25, 2005 11:00-12:15 Exercise 1.5 Sunday. I thought it would be a day just like any other day. Back then, I was about six or seven. My parents had planned out the day for my siblings and me. They were ready to take us to Denver, which to me was a fun place to go to because there were tall buildings and the city was always bustling with people. Every time I went there, it was always a new adventure. Today turned out to be no different, but this was a different adventure than I had expected. I wouldn't be running around in the park or playing hideand-seek with my little brother and sister today. There wasn't going to be any hot dog stands along the curb where I was going. My mom called it a museum. Actually she called it the Museum of Natural History. I thought it was some place filled with music. Little did I know that there wouldn't be any tunes here, but skeletons, big skeletons. This was my first encounter with skeletons. My dad told me that these skeletons were of dinosaurs the past and many of the animals were never to be seen again by mankind. I was getting excited. I didn't know what to expect. My family and I headed off to church per usual. After service, we were off to Denver for lunch and then finally, to the Museum of Natural History. Anticipation was building up as we were headed over to Denver down Interstate 25. "Are they going to eat us?" asked my brother. "No, son, they're not alive anymore." "But what if they're hungry? What do they eat?" he asked. Now I too was getting scared. What if they did get hungry and wanted to munch on some humans. I had seen it in the cartoons on TV. The dinosaurs were much larger
than us and they could anything they wanted. But my mom assured me that they were not going to be hungry and they weren't going to tear us to pieces like we were big, juicy hamburgers. Lunch was over and we were ready to head off to the museum. My brother and I raced to the entrance as we usually did everywhere we went. There was a line of all sorts of people, some big some small, eagerly waiting to get into the museum. After a few minutes, we finally got into the Once museum. we got in, it looked like any other place in Denver to me. It was big and gray and there were people walking everywhere. I didn't see any gigantic creatures waiting to tear me to pieces. We walked around a little more and then we finally started to see the dinosaurs. I was so amazed at their magnificence. It was hard to think that these animals ruled the earth millions of years ago. They looked so real, even if their skin was missing. I remember seeing the pterodactyl, the bird like dinosaur. That was my brother's favorite because it could fly. It took me awhile to find my favorite, but I remember when I first saw it. It was there at the end of the room in front of the fake trees and the wall that resembled a mountainside. It had plates protruding from its back. It looked like a gigantic turtle. The dinosaur wasn't as big as the other ones, but it was still bigger than me. The tour guide led us over to the dinosaur and was describing how it lived and what it ate. "This dinosaur was found right here in Colorado and lived off eating plants..." as I recalled what the guide said. This made me feel special. Right where I stood could have been a place a stegosaurus once stood. I felt a connection to the species. We both lived in the state of Colorado. I know that no kid in any other state could say that the stegosaurus was from their home state. The stegosaurus made me feel special. There was something
that I could be proud of Colorado for. We were the home of the stegosaurus. I knew which dinosaur was now my favorite. The stegosaurus and I are both from Colorado and I know that it meant something. I knew that the stegosaurus would be my favorite, not only because of the way it looked, but because it's like me, it was from Colorado. When the day was over, I felt a special relationship to the stegosaurus. It was an odd dinosaur to call me favorite, but I didn't care. I didn't need a tyrannosaurus rex that was king of the dinosaurs and I didn't need a brontosaurus that was the tallest of them all. I just wanted a dinosaur that I could call my own. The stegosaurus was my answer to that. It was a dinosaur that I could call my favorite.