The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, Hot Springs

This was awesome. A live dig site, indoors, with AC. The staff were actually working on the fossils while we were there. Scraping with a dental pick. You can watch them work, talk to them, learn about their job and the site. There is a self-guided tour with QR codes you scan at each stop. The tour guides you through the site explaining the numbers, the fossils, the history…amazing. Plus, it is affordable. Pretty neat time, glad we made the drive here!

I'm so glad we stopped here! This was such an interesting place. There's so much information packed in about the fossils and the history of the site. The volunteers and workers are very friendly and informative. We had conversations with several about the fossil they were working on, what finds they had discovered that day, or how they worked with the various tools. Definitely scan the QR codes located on the walkway railing around the site. They explain the different areas you can see from each stop. I put it on speaker so the kids could listen with me. There's 4-5 codes to scan, so make sure you get them all. We spent a good hour and a half here. There's another portion in the museum at the back of the gift shop that we almost missed. The gift shop has a nice selection. You can also buy a bag of soil to sift using the sluice out front to discover stones and fossils. We did a medium sized fossil find and it had quite a bit of stones and shark teeth in it. The kids loved it. There's also a small snack shack out front with pizza, hotdogs, chips and drinks.