Well, let treasure that's fairly new to the area is the Indiana Dinosaur Museum.

But there is much more than just dinosaurs here.

I have our friend Mark with us.

Thank you so much for joining us here today.

I'm experienced.

This is my first time being in this space and just walking in.

It is overwhelming.

It is beautiful.

I'm excited to see everything that you guys have to offer here, because it is more than just a dinosaur museum, right?

Well it is, it's a nature park, the Continental Divide Park.

It's the chocolate company which has been a traditional favorite for over 30 years.

And we have a bakery here and a restaurant and 100 acres to explore.

That's tremendous.

Oh my gosh.

And I'm so excited.

Dave and I get to be together today.

We're not always together, but today we're going to be exploring everything that you guys have here.

You know, the last time I don't not sure.

You're not the only person that does crazy things in this area.

Courtney likes to put like 90 Christmas trees in our house.

So that's the last time I actually got to see her was at our house for Christmas for those trees.

But you also, it seems like to do things that are fiscally responsible.

No, I'm just kidding.

Well, it's no longer than life.

Now, this this is wonderful.

And I came here recently with my daughter, who was two at the time, and my wife and the experience here.

It really is an experience.

That's something that you must have really put a lot of effort into.

Well, you know, people are paying for experience.

They call an experienced economy.

And we've kind of I've kind of developed that in South Bend with the assets we have, the Continental divide.

God put that here.

Yeah.

You know, so I didn't I just highlighted it.

And we have a trail now.

And the dinosaurs I dug up and God put them there too.

So was that the starting point for you or what made you decide on this space in particular, because you were already doing some of these things individually.

Right?

Right.

I was, you know, we had the dinosaurs for 30 some years.

We had the chocolate tour.

But then I developed this hobby of digging up dinosaurs.

And the mayor and the city of South Bend was they were incredibly supportive of this vision because tourism is a is a is an industry, you know, and so I put all three of them together.

And it seems to be I think it's going to be a national attraction, not just to regional one.

Yeah, I love that.

And how long have you been working with dinosaur fossils?

I mean, it's about 2000, 2001 quite some time.

I just found one that's new to science to really it's going to be named after me, I hope.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's not just, you know, rubber Dinosaur Museum.

It's somewhere between entertainment and science.

That's wonderful.

So.

And there are real fossils here, of course.

Yeah, well that's real me.

No, but one thing I did notice as well.

And even today.

And it's not just a fluke, when we came in like the hospitality here, that's something.

As much as people will be impressed by the exhibits, I was equally impressed by the staff's enthusiasm for this.

Well, you know, part of I'm very proud to be from Indiana and Hoosier hospitality is something we were known for, and it's been watered down by, you know, people in our culture.

But I'm I'm very proud of Indiana.

And one of the great things we have is our personality.

We never had things like money.

So I don't know.

And again, obviously the Dinosaur Museum is part of the big attraction here, which we're going to head in their first.

Right.

So I think that's the first thing we should say.

And tell me a little bit about where it starts, because these doors are magnificent.

Well, it starts you know, I probably I learn by doing and I go to a lot of museums and gosh, they have great collections, but there's too much Latin and not enough entertainment.

So it starts with an inspirational film because science and dinosaurs should be inspirational.

So we start that way.

I love it.

All right, let's head in.

Let's go.

All right.

So, Mark, as you come in here, the first thing you're greeted with is a storyteller that works here.

Why was that important to get people into it?

Well, you know, a lot of museums have great specimens, but they're kind of devoid of people.

Yeah.

And so we wanted to tell the story.

So if you want, someone will just talk your ear off.

Yeah, I like it, but everybody seems so enthusiastic.

I know I mentioned that, but why this piece?

Why?

Why do you start this way?

Because obviously when you start, you want to make an impression.

Yeah, we want to make an impression.

And the dinosaur, you can reach out and touch it.

It's not on a, you know, on a on a podium.

But if you look behind us, the Turner quarry, for eight years, I found a sauropod, which is a long neck that's new to science.

And I want people to know that anybody can do this.

You know, I'm a non-degree professional, and I love long necks.

And so we started it out with a bang.

I like it.

And can you show me a little bit because this is let's go a little bit about your story and how you get started here.

Right.

And so the Turner Quarry.

So is that actually the name of the quarry?

Do you have a quarry?

That's the name of the quarry.

And there during the Jurassic period, there were huge rivers.

And a bunch of dinosaurs died in this one location.

And if you look in the distance there on that photo, that's Yellowstone in the distance.

Oh, wow.

I had one of the best views in the world.

Yeah.

And I dug there for eight years, and we found a dinosaur that's new to science.

Over a thousand bones.

Nice.

Can I bring my camper out sometime?

Yes you can.

You're on camera.

So.

Yeah, I mean Wyoming now, so you won't find me there.

Oh, okay.

So I won't find you here, but.

No.

So this is wonderful.

Which one is kind of like your.

Do you have, like, a pride and joy of things, or is it like, what was the first one you found or, you know, the first dinosaur?

And we're going to see her later on as Juliet.

She has skin on her.

Okay.

And it's kind of a rare thing.

And I'll let you see some of the skin.

All right.

Maybe we should just go have a look at that.

So.

Okay, before we go see the dinosaur with the skin, because that sounds cool.

We're so used to just seeing them in bone form.

Right?

We don't get to see.

Tell me about, like, some of these displays, like, so big, so bold.

Well, you know, we had everybody has trouble explaining time.

And so I thought if we did it in three stories that that whole design, there is three stories tall, but we've been the Earth's been around about 4.6 billion years.

We haven't been around that long.

No.

Even complex life is only the last 543 billion years.

And we get so caught up in our little 80 years, if we're lucky, right?

We get so caught up in everything and we're just we're all going to be extinct.

And then we all going to be dug up fast someday.

But we tell the stories of humans, too.

Yeah.

And we've been around about 7 million years.

Yeah.

Which we need to be cautious.

Have a caution.

You know, that's about how long every species last.

Yeah, yeah, we're about there.

I know that my daughter is favorite, and I know it's a favorite with the kid.

Is the sandbox over here?

You know, I said to her at one point, I was like, you know, we probably just could have brought you to a beach, you know?

But they do really do love.

You want to come over and look at that?

I do.

Yeah.

Well, that's one of our innovations is the, you dig, quarry?

Yes.

So we have the traditional.

Dig sites where kids can dig up bones, you know, and we have this sort of high tech one here.

They love that.

But this is an innovation.

So you guys, we actually have a real.

This is a real dinosaur footprint.

Oh really a real one.

Yeah.

Wow.

And you can dig.

You can.

Anywhere you dig.

You can find a fossil.

You'll find something.

Okay, let me have a look.

Let's see what you got there.

All right.

All right.

Let me see how even anybody can find a fossil.

Is that something here?

I don't know.

Is it small or is it big?

No.

You're going to have to.

I'm going to have to tell me.

All right.

I found one right here.

You found one already?

That is a shell.

I would have just thought that was a stone.

Is that.

How do you get good at telling the difference?

I don't know.

Now that's a stone.

Okay.

Like, as somebody who has a three year old, she loves getting her fingers in the dirt.

I mean, that's just something we're born.

We don't.

We don't do your laundry, though, and.

No.

You know, another thing we did, too is we have a mammal in each area so that you can compare and contrast.

Like in the long neck area of the sauropods.

We have a giraffe here.

We have a kudu.

So you can compare the horns of a modern mammal with those of a of a Triceratops.

It's great to show that it's like it's not just this distant thing, it's still part of it.

Well, you know, what I've learned is that life is a continuum.

You know, we see it as the segment.

It's not.

No.

And so that story just unfolds.

And the neat thing is, we're all we're all part of a small part of that story.

Yeah.

It's amazing to be alive.

Oh, it's such a gift.

I love it.

This is a model of a dinosaur.

A duckbill that I found.

That's the tail of the duckbill.

And we haven't started working on it yet, but it has bones on one side and skin on the other.

So.

And I'll show you a little bit of the skin that I found.

I bet the process to kind of get it out.

It must be just painstaking.

Well, there's we have to train someone, and very few people in the world even know how to deal with skin.

Only about 15 or 20 pieces of skin have ever been found.

Wow.

And I'm going to show you one of them.

But can you see it?

See down there?

The skin.

It's right on the crust.

You look white cells like little hexagons.

Yeah.

Scale it.

And so this is the tip of that tail.

Wow.

It's amazing.

And as you said, only 15 or 20 in the whole world have ever been found.

Yeah.

Is there, like, genetic testing then on that skin or, you know, genetic, but there's.

Yes.

I don't know if it's genetics, but there are leftovers where we may be able to tell the color of the skin, because these left over mineralized parts that were the colors of skin.

So I want to have eventually one of the world's largest collection of dinosaur books memorabilia and have a real research library.

Here's me.

Here's a picture of me hard at work, too.

Yeah, that was a natural pose.

Right.

You didn't know the camera was there?

That's just heavy.

But I know next we're going to head outside.

Because although there's a lot of magic in here, there's a lot of magic that's happening outside on a lot of acreage as well.

So.

All right, we're going to head outside with Courtney.