This is part of our 100 Things in 2014 challenge. Here’s the full list.

We were in Arizona anyway, we couldn’t not visit this place.

They have a great collection of dinosaurs here. Just when you think you’ve seen them all, you walk into the next room and boom – there’s a robot T-Rex roaring at you.

We were actually chased from room to room by a giant school group. We kept dodging into the room they had just left, so we wouldn’t be in the way annoyed too much.

There was a courtyard exhibit on Arizona’s four C’s: Climate, Copper, Citrus, and Cattle. (From our Phoenix experience, we thought they should instead be Cactus, Construction, Cars, and Chain restaurants.) They also have gold-panning, with tiny, real gold nuggets in the sand.

And a pit where junior paleontologists can practice unearthing ancient monster skeletons.

There’s a room full of old gadgets, each with a multiple-choice questionnaire to see if you can figure out what it is. The kids were kind of baffled by what a phone booth was for.

We also got to practice building and designing like ancient North- and South-Americans.

And we puzzled together the skeleton and skin of a swimming dinosaur. This kept all four of us busy for an entire half hour.

This was a great stop for our family. We literally spent all day here. It felt a bit like the Tardis; the building doesn’t look all that big, but it keeps going and going, and before you know it it’s almost dinnertime.