Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Today the Denver Museum of Nature & Science is having a free day open to the public. Since we had the day open and had never been to the museum we decided to pack Johnny up in his stroller and go to the museum. The museum opened at 9am and we go there around 9:05am since we never seem to get where we want to go on time when we have to get Johnny ready and in the car. We thought since it was a free day we wouldn't be able to find good parking and it would be very crowded, but we were pleasantly wrong. When we got there we got a parking space right out front and for the first hour and a half that we were there it was relatively sparse with visitors (it is a big museum). The last half hour though was VERY crowded, and a lot of the people thought it was acceptable to just stop in the middle of the walkway and not move so that NOBODY could get by. We only stayed two hours because it was too crowded for us and Johnny was getting a little grumpy being confined to his stroller (he runs & gets into everything and goes limp when you try to get him to behave so we keep him in his stroller at places like this).

This is Johnny before we headed out the door to go to the museum...can't you tell he is from the northwest in his flannel?? :) I think he is quite adorable in his "Save the Planet" tee, flannel shirt, jeans, & converse sneakers.  (I'm biased though)

This is Johnny getting ready to drive the car to the museum. ;) (John was switching the car seat to the Landcruiser from our other car)

The first section of the museum that we explored was the "Space Odyssey" exhibits, which was one of our favorites of the whole museum.

 (This is the guys in front of a giant globe--John's favorite thing in the whole museum...he now is requesting one for our apartment)

 

(This is John playing an interactive game where you try and dock the space shuttle onto a specific spot in the same gravity conditions as in space--it was surprisingly VERY difficult--he never ended up getting it to land properly)

(A space suit that was hanging from the ceiling)

I took more pictures of the Space Odyssey exhibits but didn't want to inundate the blog with tons of pictures of just one thing, so I limited to the best of each exhibit.  I have pictures of the Mars exhibit which was a big room glassed in that held rocks and dirt that looked like Mars.  There were telescopes, a planetarium, tons of moving pictures of the planets and space, and many other interactive games revolving around space exploration.

The exhibits we went to next were on the second floor.  These exhibits included various animal species of the world, Native American cultures, the Kid Discovery Zone, and the Expedition Health.  We went to all of the animal exhibits (divided up by regions and continents) and the Native American exhibits.  We were planning on going to the Kid Discovery Zone but when we got there you had to leave your stroller outside and the room was PACKED with people--like a can of sardines.  Everything to do was hands on activities and most of the toys were already occupied so we decided to try out this portion of the museum the next time we go.  We also didn't go to the Expedition Health because you couldn't take strollers into it and Johnny was too grumpy to walk calmly through the exhibit.  

We LOVED the Native American exhibits but we weren't so fond of the animal exhibits.  It was neat looking at all of the animals but all of the animals in the exhibits were stuffed dead animals.  :(  They had signs saying that the museum had sent out people in the early-to-mid twentieth century to other continents to "collect the specimens" (which I think means capture & kill).  It was really upsetting, especially because a large majority of the animals in the exhibits were endangered or extinct animals...and they would have like twenty of each species sometimes, including baby animals.  There were hundreds and hundreds of dead animals in these exhibits.  We really weren't impressed with that at all...

(here are the guys in front of the display that held stuffed koala bears) 

(Sadly this is the closest we'll get to Australia for a while)

(some artifacts of the Amazon)

 

(some stuffed Grizzly bears--including a cub--the sign underneath it says that the last Grizzly Bear in Colorado died in 1979)

 

(some polar bears stuffed--apparently it doesn't matter that they are endangered)

 

(some totem poles in the Native American exhibit--they were very tall)

(one of the many exhibits of Native American artifacts)

(some of the styles of the Northern Plains Indians--including the Blackfeet, which are my ancestors)

(I can't imagine that it would be too comfortable to be stuck in a confining space attached to a board while your mom was off doing other chores...I kept telling Johnny that if he didn't behave that I was going to make him sit in one of these and then he'd learn to appreciate his stroller--he knew they were empty threats)

 

(the lighting was poor in this particular area so the picture isn't that great, but we're standing in front of a log cabin like what the Northeastern Indians lived in)

There was a random exhibit of Russian Folk Gem-carvings.  They had some really bizarre carvings--a lot of them were of naked men doing random things or naked men who weighed a ton and were eating a whole bunch.  This is one of the gem carvings that we saw.  We're not actually sure what is happening here...

(a naked massage...Russian-style??)

The third floor of the museum had exhibits of the animals and cultures of Africa and South America. We looked at those, but mainly they were exhibits of more dead animals, with some human cultural artifacts mixed in.  This floor also had the Egyptian Mummies exhibit and the Prehistoric Exhibit (included the dinosaurs).  

(Johnny next to a lion--one of his favorite animals)

(a view of one of the many hanging skeletons we saw as we walked through the museum...this is a prehistoric whale)

(one of the mummies we saw in the Egyptian exhibit...this was a "poor woman" who was mummified, so she doesn't have a fancy casket--I felt like giving her some love since EVERYBODY was more interested in the "rich woman" mummy they had there)

(this was randomly in display in the Prehistoric exhibits...I guess they felt they MUST include a Denver Broncos logo somewhere in the museum so the "Prehistoric" section would be the right place for it??? we were actually looking forward to escaping from all the football on TV by going to the museum & alas! it found us there too...how sad)

 

(John & Johnny in front of a T-Rex skull--this was by far Johnny's favorite exhibit--he kept trying to get out of his stroller to play with all of the dinosaur skeletons)

(I think Johnny & I are in front of the bronchiosauraus (sp?) skeleton, but I can't remember precisely)

The very top floor of the museum was a Sky Terrace where you went outside (it was a little chilly) and can see Denver's skyline--it was very pretty.  You could see all of the downtown skyline with the Rocky Mountains in the background.  And you can see the city itself which is basically a huge forest of trees with the occasional building peeking up through them.  I seriously don't exaggerate when I say that Denver is made of trees! :)

(look @ that gorgeous view of the city! and my two handsome guys--I LOVE this picture of them)

(not that great of a picture of me--I was talking when John took the picture--but look at that view of Denver!)

 

(the tree skyline--basically all of Denver)

 

(Johnny started getting tired at the end of the tour)

After the Sky Terrace we went back down to the first floor of the museum to check out the one exhibit that we had missed unintentionally--the Gems & Minerals exhibit.  It was pretty cool, but we only saw one part of the exhibit because it was SO crowded.  Some person thought it was a bright idea to take his children to the museum in a large outdoor wagon rather than a stroller and he kept blocking the very narrow pathways so you'd end up standing in a bunch for several minutes before you could even get through.  Plus every time I tried to take a picture of Johnny & John in front of something people would walk right up and get in the way as if they didn't care.  Once all of the people started showing up it made it really unpleasant and I was getting frustrated so we called it a day and left.  We did get to see the part of the exhibit with all of the gems, minerals, and rocks (including amethyst--John & my birthstone!), but not up close since there were so many people blocking the way.  We ended up leaving before we got to see the Mining section of the exhibit.  This exhibit was probably really crowded because the pathways were really narrow--it was built for you to feel like you were inside of a mining shaft inside of a cave, so it made the feeling even more claustrophobic for me.

(John & Johnny in front of some stalagmites and stalactites) 

(John & Johnny in front of a T-Rex exhibit before we left the museum)

Even though it got really crowded at the museum at the very end, we had a really great time looking around at all of the exhibits at the museum!  Plus, who can't enjoy something that was FREE. :)  I am glad we got there when the museum first opened because we got an hour and a half to look around before all of the crowds showed up.  Our favorite exhibits were the Space Odyssey and the Native American ones.  I'm sure if we had been able to see the Expedition Health, that would have been my favorite & if we had been able to see the Gems and Minerals exhibit more in-depth that would have been John's favorite.  Johnny's would have been the Kid Discovery Zone for sure if we had been able to really enjoy it without all of the crowds.  Next time we'll make sure we get to see the exhibits we didn't get to see this time.  The animal exhibits weren't all bad--they were very educational and it was fun looking at animals, but it was our least favorite because of the fact that they were stuffed dead animals.  It would have been a lot better had they only been models of animals.  We are excited to go back to the museum again sometime in the future though! :)  If you are ever in the Denver area I recommend you check out the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.  

We are getting ready to go on a bike ride at the Cherry Creek Trail this afternoon before we go to mass at the Cathedral (hopefully this attempt will be successful), so hopefully I'll post more pictures from the bike ride later on tonight. :)