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Working as a tour guide at the Museum of the Rockies wasn’t much but it was enough to have bought a small house, a truck, his meals, and a plane ticket back a day late: all the things a man could ask for.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, “ Alan began, getting a large groups attention.
“Welcome to the Museum of the Rockies. My name is Alan, and I have the pleasure of being your tour guide today. I will be walking you through the museum and its exhibits. This way please,” he finished, motioning off to the left.
“Welcome to the ‘One Place Through all Time:’ our planetarium. There are shows every hour which start off from the beginning of time and last through to our present state. Everything from the Big Band to the formation of the planets to a present day meteor shower.
“This next exhibit is the ‘Time Room.’ Here, this clock you see is ticking. For times sake, we pretend that every second is a year, and every minuet is sixty years. Now, in order for the clock to tick enough times for it to be the Earth’s age it would take–any guesses?”
The kids erupted into a cacophony of nonsense answers.
“20 minuets?”
“Two weeks?”
“A million-bagillion years!”
Alan laughed, “Close. Here’s a hint: One hundred and forty-six years! It’s that old!”
Several moans of awe could be heard even among the parents.
“We continue on through to the kinetic rolling ball. This represents the changes in seasons on the Earth such as food, water, and rock cycles. Next, over here we have land and life forms. You may stop in here and look at the beautiful exhibits depicting life millions of years ago. There is a short movie on Pangea as well,” he said pointing off to a room.
“And now to the exciting part. One day, 68 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Some of these animals were mean, and some were nice. Some were swift and intelligent, and some were slow and dumb.”
“Sir,” a little boy asked, raising his hand.
“Yes?”
“Do we know what dinosaurs really looked like? Do they really look like the dinosaurs in this exhibit?”
Alan almost answered ‘no,’ when he realized he couldn’t answer them how he wanted to.
“Well, son, dinosaurs died off millions of years ago. They didn’t have cameras back then, and there were no, Lizard-arno Divinchi’s back then either, so we don’t know exactly what they look like–“
”What about those dinosaurs on the island?” an adult male voice called out from the back.
“Those animals,” Alan paused, taking in a breath and attempting to steady his voice, “are genetically recreated. They are not accurate representations but just what the scientists wanted them to look like.”
“But sir,” the little boy who’d asked the question earlier said, tugging on Alan’s pocket, “what if they wanted them to be real?”
Alan thought to himself for a second not knowing how to answer the child when another voice called out.
“Wait a minute! You’re Dr. Alan Grant! You’ve been to the island! You know what they look like!” and all at once, the tour group went into an uproar of voices, all calling out for autographs and pictures.
“Please, please!” Alan yelled out to the group, trying to regain calm.
“Alan? What’s going on?” a man from behind asked.
The crowd had a collective hush and parted out of his way.
“Dr. Horner. Good’ay. You seem to have caught me in the middle of an autograph session.”
“I see. Ladies and Gentlemen, we ask that you not ask Dr. Grant for his autograph. It can be bothersome to the others here and can potentially get someone hurt. If you would like and if Dr. Grant wants to, he can give you one after the tour.”
“Thank you, Jack,” Alan sighed.
“No problem, Alan.”
