First Visit to the Museums in the Botanical Garden

C took Friday off of school this week, and we snuck out of the house to leave Chris in peace and quiet to finish his current project. We went off to the botanical gardens, which are just about to burst in this spring weather, and visited the natural history museums there (geology/paleontology/zoology). We had a great time, and I’m sure we’ll go back again.

We were early and had to wait for the museums to open, so we had a snack.

C took this picture of me while I was bouncing Apl to sleep.

Apl decided she was done sleeping for now, but was being super cute. Note the plethora of handknits: hat, sweater, baby sweater in matching yarn… plus, I’m knitting. Ack! Overload!

This bird was hopping around behind us looking for worms. It reminded me of my Dad, consumate birder.

These museums were actually pretty perfect, except I had to do a lot of translating from Norwegian. Anyway, there was plenty to look at, but the museum was not huge. There were two large skeletons and 5 or 6 smaller ones, as well as a large collection of bones. They were clearly displayed in context, with a number of visual representations of the evolution of the animals over time, habitat, etc. C found it very engaging.

He’s looking at a life-size wooly mammoth that was down in the vestibule there. Those things were big! And wooly! Hmmmm, I wonder what kind of yarn that would’ve made…

This skeleton had these strange bone structures around the eye — I’d never seen anything like it before.