Megan’s Take
Today’s big activity was visiting the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. I was impressed with the easy free parking and easy logistics with young children (accessibility and navigating with a wagon, bathrooms/water fountains, being allowed to bring food inside etc). Phil and I both felt like it’s a large, well organized museum. The exhibits are interesting to adults and included interactive components for children.
Emilia and Emmett enjoyed the space exhibit,
looking at wildlife displays,
and the interactive Discovery Zone section for young children,
and my favorite exhibit was an extensive gems and minerals collection.
We also saw a fun (and short) planetarium show called the Great Solar System Adventure that kept both kids’ attention.
We were at the museum most of the day, and then we spent the remainder of the evening getting ready to head homeward tomorrow.
Phil’s Take
I was skeptical of a museum because of the toddler attention span factor, but it ended up being a good use of the day. It was more interesting to the kids than I had expected. There were a few things that stood out to me.
There was a cool cutaway of the wall around the escalator at the beginning, which showed how it worked that we all thought was interesting.
After all of the rock climbing, everything gets the same kind of treatment. It’s amazing how much entertainment Emmett can get out of something so simple as this ladybug
in front of a cool butterfly exhibit.
It was the first time I had seen a paleontology lab with such an intricate specimen. I would have loved to see them work on it, but they were not in the lab today.
I’m the space area they had this makeshift Mars base showing the rock and atmosphere.
Near this was a rocket launch simulator that made the floor vibrate, which got a ton of repetition from the kids. Sadly I didn’t get any pictures of that.
The gem section was cool, though Megan was no doubt more interested. There was an enormous geode
and all sorts
of other cool stuff in there.
Megan’s favorite was the huge petrified tree trunk at the beginning (featured in her section).
One of the last things was a collection of art made from sculpted gems. These pieces of art were very detailed and lifelike.
Although I would have rather spent the time in nature at one of the of the national parks, it was a good day. As much as I hate to call an end to this vacation, it’s been awesome and after over 6 weeks traveling, it’s time to go home. I choose to feel good about going back with the memories than be sad about it being over. We’ll make a last post tomorrow recapping the trip.
The pictures from today’s trip to the museum are in this gallery.
