Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Kids

 Denver, CO

The Elephant Statue outside the Museum in City Park

Using our ASTC Science Museum Pass

Today we took the morning to drink coffee, read the paper, and plan adventures.  We had lunch at the Airbnb and then we set out for our 1pm appointment at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  We hopped a bus and got half way there and then I realized I had forgotten our ASTC Pass.  This was the pass that was going to get us into the museum for free.  Donna suggested I call the museum to see if they can look our pass up so that is what I did.  They said they couldn't but they said that if I had a receipt for the purchase of the pass I could show that.  I did!  It was in my email so we were going to get in!

Our trip took us through City Park where I took a few pictures.  The museum is in City Park on the other end.

City Park ahs Swan Boats just like the ones in Echo Park.  They are even run by the same company.

In May the ice is extremely thin so please stay off the lake.

  

When we got to the museum there were tons of kids.  This was a bad sign.  We went in and showed our receipt for the pass and got our tickets.  We headed to the Mammal Collection which has wildlife dioramas.  We enjoyed them as much as we could with all of the kids running around and screaming.  We figured it might have been the first day of no school so it was our mistake.  From now on we will only go to art museums in the summer.  

We tried to find areas with fewer kids but we were unsuccessful so we walked a few wings and then decided to head home.  

They had a Big Horn Sheep diorama

Info on the different types of deer found in North America

A cool collection of Native American Art and artifacts

I liked their take on the Statue of Liberty

They also had 2 wings of just birds.  

And even some extinct birds like the Ivory Billed Woodpecker

They also had a display of different Eiders

We used the stairs for our hasty exit

This petrified tree trunk was huge

We took a quick trip through the Hall of Gems and Minerals.  Last time we were here we spent a lot of time in this section.

Donna heading to the mines

They had really large displays of mineral formations still in the rocks they were found in

We decided to take a selfie incase we didn't make it out alive

The unexpected is part of the adventure and every adventure teaches you a lesson.  The lesson today was to not to go a kid friendly place when kids have been cooped up for 2.5 years.  To be fair, their parents were cooped up with the kids too so I guess maybe they needed a day to just let the kids run wild and zone out.  I can't imagine how tough it must have been for large families to isolate for as long as most of us did.  Tomorrow is another adventure.  Hopefully we won't find as many screaming kids.

Want to read about the time we bought bread?  Check it out here.