Natural Bridge, Virginia: (Old) Dinosaur Kingdom (Closed)

Dinosaurs vs. the Union Army in an alternate universe Civil War -- the Rebs win! Closed in 2012, reborn elsewhere as a new attraction.

We wanted to provide an update about Dinosaur Kingdom, which was closed by a fire in 2012. We found the site; the nearby parking lot is slowly becoming overgrown and any signage has been removed. There are several No Trespassing warnings next to a chained gate that can easily be walked around. The path still exists, but any of the Dinosaur/Civil War statues have been removed. A burned-out structure exists halfway along the loop trail, but that's it. However, Mr. Mark Cline has saved what didn't get destroyed by the fire, and those bits are located in the enclosed yard at his workshop down the road. If you want to see what's left, you'll have to go there. We were lucky to meet the man when he was there, and it was a wonderful visit.

It should be noted that Dinosaur Kingdom and the Monster Museum are only open on Saturdays. So when we took the detour there on a Tuesday, we were very disappointed. As I was pouting on the way back to the interstate, we stopped at what used to be Enchanted Castle, and met the man behind it all. Mark Cline was fantastic, and told me about a little passage that I could get on the property to look around. i could see the outside of the Monster Mansion (which looked AWESOME) and wander through the paths of dinosaurs and other objects. Even without the special effects of movements, growls, music, etc Dinosaur Kingdom was beyond awesome. There were so many little details to everything. I cannot wait to go back and see it in full swing.

This was by far my favorite place my mom and I stopped during our Roadside America road trip. Not only were the dinosaurs awesome, the attention to detail was outrageous. We walked through twice just to catch all the little things we missed the first time, such as small lizards on the trees, hidden smaller dinosaurs, notes left around the exhibit. Well worth the trip to Natural Bridge.

This April I'm opening a new attraction on the property of Professor Cline's Haunted Monster Museum called Dinosaur Kingdom.

You will enter Dinosaur Kingdom through an abandoned palentologist shack from the 1800s. I'll be molding my Mexican workers' faces to have statues of them fighting the dinosaurs. I'm planning to animate the dinos for realism and will have the Mexicans looking so real I'm going to paint green cards sticking out out their back pockets.

Also for April Fool's Day this year I'm going to place a Bin Laden statue on one of my camel statues and have it "ride" to various places around Roanoke, Virginia. I hope to raise money for the American Cancer Society by having the businesses "pay" to have Bin moved off of their property so as not to be accused of being in cahoots with Al Qaida.