Day 3--Museum of Natural History

Today, Wednesday, April 1, we woke up to kind of a rainy day, so we decided to spend the day at the Museum of Natural History. Originally, we planned to do the Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum in the same day, but there was just too much to see. So, we spent the whole day at the Museum of Natural History which included two 3D IMAX movies. This was the first time for us to see 3D in an IMAX theater. The movies we saw were "Deep Sea 3D" and "Dinosaurs 3D: Giants of Patagonia". Both of them were excellent. The kids loved the movies, especially the 3D...Eric and I enjoyed them too. You really could see things very close up in great detail. Jarem was a little scared of the 3D when the sharks and ferocious dinosaurs came along so he didn't always keep his glasses on. It took him awhile to figure out that they WEREN'T actually right there in front of him. Probably the dinosaurs was the scariest for him.


This is my favorite picture that we got of the capitol. We stopped for this picture when we were walking to the Natural History Museum.

Each day we rode the Metro (subway) to and from our hotel to the different attractions. The kids enjoyed the adventure and liked figuring out which stop we had to get off. We only got on the wrong metro once, and went three stops before realizing we were headed in the wrong direction. All in all, it was a great way to travel.

This is a view of the main rotunda of the National Museum of Natural History looking down from the second floor. The museum is HUGE! It has 18 exhibition halls containing tens of thousands of artifacts and specimens that together tell the story of the earth and its evolution into the planet of today. Even spending all day there, we didn't see all the exhibits.

Eric and the kids with the main rotunda in the background...it should look like the picture above behind them, but the flash ruined the background.

The girls standing in front of the skeleton of a huge leatherback turtle. They loved seeing the turtles.

Jarem and Eric next to a see turtle skeleton

In the "Dig It: The Secrets of Soil" exhibit there were soil samples from every state. It was very interesting to see the different colors and types of dirt in every state.

I thought this was cute how Tessa had her IMAX tickets tucked in her back pocket. The IMAX movies were great!

We found this meteorite rock in the exhibit, "Geology, Gems, & Minerals". We spent a lot of time here looking at different rocks, but the most interesting were the meteorites found in all different parts of the world. This particular meteorite was found in Oakley, ID! (That is a tiny town very close to where I grew up). The interesting finger type markings on the outside tell the amount of heat and speed of the descent. There was a meteorite in this display that was 4.6 billion years old. Scientists study meteorites because they contain amino acids: the basic building blocks of cells. Interesting, huh?

There was a display on the Islands of Micronesia. I took this picture for my parents since they served their mission in these two places where we are pointing. I'm pointing to Chuuk, and Jesikah is pointing to Kosrae.

This strange creature was supposedly a creature that transitioned between the dinosaurs and the mammals of today.

One of many dinosaurs skeletons on display. I believe this was Diplodocus Longus found in Utah in 1923.

In the anciet seas area, this huge, lighted globe rotated in the center of the room with narration showing ocean currents and how storms form.

The only live creatures in the museum were in this aquarium. The girls were particularly interested in it at this moment because they had just fed the fish and they were all going crazy after the food.

Tessa trying to post like the penguin

We had to get a picture with Jesikah next to the "Bubblegum Corral" because she loves bubblegum so much. Each section of the coral ended in a round node that looked like bubblegum.

There were 274 taxidermic specimens (stuffed animals) in the Mammals Hall. We especially liked this giraffe because it showed how giraffes have to bend to get a drink...how awkward!