I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of Paleontology in the town of Trelew, in Chubut Province of Argentina. A town founded by Welsh immigrants in Patagonia not far from the atlantic coast. The area surrounding Trelew redefines the word "flat" for me. A nearby bay by the town of Rawson has whales that attract a lot of visitors. If you go here, forget the new hotels and go to the Hotel Touring Club. This is a fabulous place right out of the turn of the century. The bar (confiteria or snack place) is absolutely worth going to. It is like dining in a museum but its for real. Plus, the hotel rooms can be negotiated for $25-$35 a night. Marble and granite staircases for your walk to the rooms and about a 6 block walk to the Museum. Unbelievable titanosaurs - small and large. Casts of all the major Argentine dinosaurs plus impressions of sauropod skin. Patagonian dinos tend to be sauropods, but unlike any I've ever seen. They have sauropod eggs and nests that look like bowling balls! Plus, a great collection of fossil plant materials.

Patagonia, near Trelew and Rawson, Chubut, Argentina. You can imagine this as the bottom of an ancient sea. It has redefined my concept of flat.

An absolutely huge vertebra the height of a man. It dwarfs a Brachiosaurus vertebra ... and Br. vertebrae are like tree trunks!

Three dinosaur skin impression fossils from Patagonia. Collected by Pablo Puertas of the Trelew Museum, which is under curatorship of Dr. Ruben Cuneo. All three skin impressions are from sauropods. Notice the scale pattern can even be seen in some of them.

A Carnotaurus - cast - from the museum. The quality of this specimen allowed me to understand the evolutionary sequence that advanced dinosaur breathing. Anyway, teeth AND horns. What more could you ask of a fearsome creature? The original is in the Museum in Buenos Aires. Very long legs, but a surprisingly small head.

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Finally, just a picture of me with one of the fiberglass dinosaur footprint impressions I made for local middle schools. The originals are from a Late Cretaceous Theropod from Texas, USA. Very useful for teaching students about the variety of fossils that scientist study.

Just me and my big feets.