Residents at the Hamlets seniors’ home got an up close and personal visit with Penticton’s newest attraction Alice, Canada’s largest metal T-Rex.
On Monday, around 10 residents from the Hamlets and several staff took a shuttle bus to visit the 22-foot-tall dinosaur.
The T-Rex can only be viewed by the public from the KVR Trail which is an impossible trek for many seniors living at the Hamlets, said Hamlets recreation manager Carolyn Huston.
“We reached out to the owner of the property asking if it was possible to get a private viewing and we explained the situation,” said Huston. “You never know unless you ask, right?”
To everyone’s delight, the owner Frank replied to say he’d be happy to let them have a private viewing. So the plan was hatched to go visit Alice on the Monday.
A care aide with a love of Halloween made the day extra special by dressing up in her blow-up T-Rex costume.
“We started the day with Alice’s distant cousin Annabelle helping us load the bus and send us on our way,” said Huston.
“Our seniors were so pleased and the smiles said it all,” she said. “Everyone’s been talking about Alice since she got here so it was so neat for our residents to get a personalized visit. A lot of them were saying how jealous their kids and grandkids would be.”
In late September, Alice arrived in all her shining glory, installed on a private property with an Airbnb on it.
The 17,000-pound stainless steel sculpture was so large it had to be shipped from Chilliwack to Penticton in three sections: the head and chest, the belly and hind legs, and the tail.
The massive T. Rex is located on the east side of Okanagan Lake visible to anyone walking along the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. It’s less than a kilometre north of where the trail meets a residential street called Vancouver Place.
Since she was installed, hundreds of people have walked along the KVR Trail to get a glimpse of her.
This labour of love took two years to create by Chilliwack-based artist Kevin Stone.
