Yes, my friends, we are back to my strange obsession with sealife.
Welcome to the American Museum of Natural History, in NYC. We decided to go for one more day trip to "The City" before day trips weren't possible anymore. We chose the AMNH.
I have very fond memories of this museum. I remember going when I was very young-- I was one of those kids that loved dinosaurs. LOVED them. To the point where I think that my parents thought that I was going to be a palentologist for a while. My dad encouraged my cursiosity by giving me articles about the KT Boundary soon after the scientists realized what the significance of it was. I was about 8 and reading NYTimes articles on ash found in fossilized dinosaur lung.
So going here as a kid was... like Christmas. I even remember the really old dino displays on the 4th floor. The really old ones, that looked like no one had touched the bones since they were installed in the 30s. There were a few years where there was some lame updating, but now... Now the fourth floor is goreous. Just delightful. It's much brighter, much more accessible, and there is much more information about the dinos around.
Nearly every little kids favorite*, the Triceratops.
But you can see what I mean by brighter and cleaner. I don't know how much they spent fixing up those displays, but I love it. Love. It.
So we wandered through the rest of the museum and this is where I realize how much I've changed since I was a little kid. The displays involving taxidermied animals really bothered me. I remember thinking how cool they were when I was a kid, but this time... I looked at those beautiful animals and realized that they were shot and killed for these displays.
Now, the ones in the Hall of African Mammals weren't too bad, because they were behind glass and I could pretend they were pretend. But when we walked through the hall that spotlighted the New York/New Jersey ecology and wildlife... it was down right disturbing. There were ducks and squirrels and seagulls and rabbits, all hung up like they were in butcher's shop, waiting to be skinned and prepared. It was cold. Overly scientific. There was no compassion or understanding for these creatures. They were catalogued and hung up. The primates were awful too; pygmy marmosets and orangutans mounted on walls with no seeming compassion for where they came from or for the fact that they lived some where once.
Perhaps I'm just going soft in my old age. It just bothered me. The superior line that humans take in regard to the ecosystems that support us and make Earth an interesting and diverse place. I hope that with television and film, it's really not necessary** to kill these things anymore***.
So, we moved on. To Sea Life. We all know my wonderful obession with Archie, and this was the start of it. Hall of Ocean Life. The Great Blue Cetacean.
I spend the greater part of all my previous visits trying to get a pictures of this ...whale... hanging from the ceiling. There are a few pictures in my possession that are what we could and would and should call awful. A couple of visits I took a picture, a few of the visits I took several.
This trip, I took one. Just one. The one that opened this post. One Shot. One Try. One Exposeure. One Whale.
Not Fail!
I was so stupid happy about this fake whale hanging from the ceiling. I don't know what it was about this thing that made me giddy, but it did. There's a super cool display on the bottom floor that looks like a pod of dolphins leaping through the water. There are speicies of clam and sponge and skate and ray and fish and walrus...
Nope. Prefer the whale. Thanks.
After my very nearly perfect shot of this Damned Cetacean, we moved on. To the Hall of Meteors.
Let's just say that T is not a fan of rocks, ok? I love these two rooms and could spend hours just looking at each kind of rock and mineral, and after the second Quartz crystal, he asked, "Why are we here?"
Well, we were actually there to look at a cool rock that they were supposed to have on display, but wasn't at that point. Very Sad. But we did get to see the third largest meteorite ever found.
Weighing merely 34 tons****, it took something like 30 horses to pull this sucker down Columbus to the museum, and they were afraid the road was going to collapse under it as they went along.
It turned out to be quite a nice visit. We went to a planetarium show which was cool, but they didn't use the wicked cool ball projector. I was sad about that. Still was enjoyable. I like space, too. Flaming comets and black holes make me as happy as hanging cetaceans.
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*Including Dr. Alan Grant in Jurrasic Park. Come on. It's a dinosaur. How could there NOT be a reference to that movie! Really... you should know me better by now.
**I understand that in some places, these animals are subistence, and while I do not agree with hunting, I understand that humans need to eat.
***After watching the incredible awesome presentation that was "Planet Earth" I believe that it is not.
****Yeah, that thing, the size of a compact car,
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