So, I'm in Yosemite this week, talking to a Dutch Woman there with her family

[ErikJ]

113. Ironic that Koch Tea Party funders also funded Wash DC REAL dinosaur museum.

(Reuters) - American industrialist David Koch, a major supporter of conservative causes, said on Thursday his lifelong fascination with dinosaurs drove his $35 million donation to renovate the National Museum of Natural History's dinosaur hall.

The gift was the largest single donation in the Washington-based museum and research institution's 112-year history, the Smithsonian Institution said.

"I've had a love affair with dinosaurs since I was a boy," Koch, who turned 72 on Thursday, told Reuters in a telephone interview from New York, where he lives.

"I realized that the exhibit at the Smithsonian was very out of date. Some of it goes back 100 years, and we were in desperate need of renovation," said Koch, who is on the museum's board of directors.

The current display on dinosaurs and paleontology has gone mostly unchanged for 30 years, and the Koch donation will cover most of the planned $45 million renovation, said Randall Kremer, a spokesman for the museum.