Sonya's Blog - Day 124 - The American Museum of Natural History

Sonya’s Blog - Day 124 - October 24th - The American Museum of Natural History

Back to New York on the train. The great thing about this train ride is we don't have the stress of driving and we can get some stuff done on the train. The greatest thing about the train ride is some of the views and this one is my favourite:

​The train is high up over this valley and it is just spectacular, especially with the fall colours. They don't come out as brilliant in the picture, but it is a sight to see.

We took the train to Penn Station and then hopped on the subway to get to the museum. The handy thing about the subway was that the station we got off at had an entrance to the museum right in it. This was fantastic because there was hardly any line-up, but when we looked out at the main entrance, there was a very long line-up! It was a good choice to take the subway.

This is a very large museum and very busy. Prior to lunch we managed to explore the:

Hall of African Animals

The Dinosaur Exhibits

We then had lunch in the 4th floor cafe. We looked at the website for the museum to decide what we wanted to see, because we were not going to see everything as there is just too much. There were a few particular things the kids wanted to see, so we wanted to make sure those halls were included in our visit.

Various halls that had Vertebrate Origins and Primitive Mammals (Isaac was so excited because they had the jaws of the Megaladon on the roof)

Hall of Human Origins (I wanted to see this as they had “Lucy”)

Hall of Meteorites

Hall of Gems and Minerals (this was great for Natasha’s science subject on the Periodic Table)

Hall of Pacific Peoples (This is where the Easter Island Statue is that is the Gum Gum Dum Dum Statue is from Night at the Museum)

Hall of Plains Indians

Hall of Primates (Isaac really wanted to see a specific monkey)

After we had visited all of these we decided to head over to Central Park to walk around and get some outside time. We decided to go out the main entrance because it is pretty spectacular.

Once at Central Park we just wandered aimlessly around and saw the sights. It is a very nice park, but extremely busy. We had just over an hour to walk around and then we had to get back on the subway so we could make our train home. We didn’t want to miss our time, because the next train was not until 3 hours later. We got some good pictures and explored quite a bit of the park. The Obelisk is nicknamed Cleopatra's Needle. It is one of the pair of Obelisks that were built in 1450 AD on the banks of the Nile. In 1848 one of the Obelisk's was moved to London and two years later the other one was moved to New York in exchange for funds to modernize Egypt (as negotiated by Khedive in Egypt). In the picture you can see some of the hieroglyphs, and there is a plaque on each side translating the heiroglyphs. We also got a picture with Bow Bridge below, which is in more Rom Com's than I can count. The picture with the arches behind us was a major wedding area. There were a couple of brides getting their photo's inside that arch area and off to the side an actual wedding ceremony was taking place.

It was time to leave and go search for a subway entrance. After a bit we found the subway entrance and our train came right away. We had lots of time to get our train and even to grab some food for supper to eat on the train. Look at how happy we are on the subway in New York, most of the people on it do not look this enthusiastic!

I decided I needed a break from New York for one day. Natasha is determined to get in as much as possible and Blake was willing to take her back in tomorrow. Isaac doesn’t like to miss out on anything, so he said he wanted to go back in as well. So tomorrow I am staying back with Kizmet and Blake is going to brave New York again. He would really like a break as well, but he also likes to get in as much as possible. Such a conundrum!

I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and not having a crazy day!

Sonya