Fun Find Friday
December 28, 2012
Location: Dinoland, USA, Disney's Animal Kingdom
When most people think about Disney's Animal Kingdom
their mind often travels to things like the Safari or Dinosaur, or
if you are a thrill seeker you will probably think of Expedition
Everest. It's sometimes difficult to think about Disney's Animal
Kingdom without Expedition Everest looming in the distance, but what
is even more difficult to grasp (at least to me) is the fact that
the entire Asia portion of the park wasn't around on opening day.
Keeping that in mind, let's travel over to the Boneyard for this
week's Fun Find!

The Boneyard is an amazingly detailed area which
focuses around one of the ultimate back stories found throughout all
of Walt Disney World, but it's the sign that deserves a closer look
today. While the full story of Dinoland, USA does start with this
sign (this "bone" which was found in 1947 set into motion the entire
storyline, which we will get to eventually) the sign itself has a
very interesting detail about it.
At first glance (or even your 100th glance) you may
not notice the details written upon the bone besides the location
name and the year, but if you pay close attention you may notice the
little Z along with the arrows on the left and right side of the
bones. What is the purpose of these? These are the key to our Fun
Find. If you look at the sign with a titled head you'll realize that
these aren't Z's, but in fact the letter N with an arrow pointing
up, much like a compass. So the sign is, in reality, a map! But a
map of what?
As stated in the start of the article, Disney's
Animal Kingdom did not contain Asia on opening day, but, the
Boneyard was present! So with some tweaking, Imagineers turned the
hipbone of a dinosaur into a map of Disney's Animal Kingdom as it
would have appeared on opening day!

So there you have it! An opening day park map right
before your eyes and you probably didn't even know it! Now I know
what you're thinking: "What does L36564 stand for?" That my friends,
is a story for another Fun Find Friday!
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