Monday, September 29, 2008

NC Museum of Natural History

I love a good museum, and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is a great museum. It may not be quite the Smithsonian, but was still very impressive. There were many skeletons and fossils, including four whale skeletons, an Acrocanthosaurus fossil, a giant sloth fossil and the world's only dinosaur with a fossilized heart. The coolest thing is that these are all local. I have a hard time imagining dinosaurs tramping around in these forests, but there you are.

There were also a few meteorites, one that you are encouraged to touch - who knows what kinds of diseases I caught from that little stunt. It really was something to touch an actual meteorite and to think that it used to be hurtling through space and now here it is. What can I say? I'm easily amazed.

There was also a fantastic butterfly room, where it is all but impossible to avoid touching the butterflies that swirl and flutter through the air. There is a sloth (predictably immobile and hidden) and hummingbirds which we also did not see.

Across the street is the museum of history, but we are saving that for another day.

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