Pleistocene Park?

Some years back, we took the kids (however many of 'em we had at the time) to the Big City Zoo an hour-and-a-half down the road. Which was a mildly hefty admission all by itself, even after we sorted out who got the 'student' fee, and who was an 'adult' (and just between you and me, why do 13-year-olds count as 'adults' for zoo/museum/theater admissions, but nowhere else?), and who got the 'too-little-to-understand-anything-anyway' free admission.

The day we went, there was also a Dino-mation exhibit (I think that's what it was called), with the realistic-looking mechanical dinosaurs, which charged a separate admission. We'd seen the Dino-mation exhibit a couple times before, at the little science museum in Our Town, but that had been a pretty stripped-down exhibit, due to the small space available, and we (some of us, anyway), were looking forward to seeing The Whole Schmeer.  I didn't really appreciate the separate admission, though.  As many kids as we had with us, it put us in a tough spot to stand at the entrance to the exhibit trying to decide who we'd spend an extra admission on, and who not.  In the end, I took the three oldest kids with me; Jen professed not to be all that interested anyway (or at least, not interested enough to pay the extra admission), so she took the opportunity to get off her feet for a bit, and look after the young ones.

The four of us really enjoyed the exhibit.  The 'dinosaurs' were very realistic-looking; they even had a little 'side exhibit' explaining the ways that they had simulated their skin.  And of course, they programmed their movements for maximum effect, having them look menacingly in the direction of their viewers, and maybe even unleash a roar in our direction.  It was very cool.  And of course, there was a little gift-shop at the end, where the kids convinced me to buy a realistic-looking (and vastly over-priced) T-Rex hand-puppet, which in subsequent years made some very, uh, entertaining appearances at family gatherings, and such. . .

Once we had finished with Dino-mation, we were released back out into the Zoo proper, to continue our observations of the actual living creatures - elephants and hippopotami, giant tortoises, penguins, and the like.  Even a wolverine.

Now, one of the Dino-mation critters was a woolly mammoth, which was very realistic-looking, and, as it happened (mammoths having been pretty big critters, and all), stuck up above the surrounding wall which was supposed to keep the riff-raff from seeing the extra stuff they hadn't paid for.  So, a bit later, we were walking through the part of the zoo adjacent to the special exhibit, and Jen spied the mechanical mammoth, in all its woolly, tuskular splendor, sticking up above the wall, turning its head and trumpeting. She got all excited, pointing excitedly and saying, "Look! They've got a MAMMOTH!! How did they get a MAMMOTH!?!" So I had to explain to her that, no, it wasn't, you know, a REAL mammoth, 'cuz, like, mammoths are, you know, extinct and all. . .

Have I mentioned before how really, really much I love my wife?

But you know, in a 'Jurassic Park' vein, there are lots of remarkably well-preserved mammoths, frozen into the Siberian tundra.  Thus, there is a fairly readily-accessible supply of mammoth DNA available, and much easier to get at than looking for amber-encased mosquitoes, if anybody wanted to clone one.  (And just for fun, here's the Wikipedia article on mammoths, including recent/current attempts to do just that. . .)