We woke up on our last day in San Diego, and thought for a moment that we were back home...it was so stormy and wet outside. And when I saw wet, I mean it was absolutely pouring down rain:
We had decided to go to two of the museums in Balboa Park, an 1,200 acre area of San Diego that houses 15 major museums, lush gardens, cultural, the San Diego Zoo and much more. It was a stunningly beautiful place, and I would have loved to spend more time walking around taking it all in. The architecture alone was amazing, and the gardens were full of wonderful trees and flowers. Its not a place you would expect to find in the middle of a city, and if we lived anywhere close to it, I think I would be there a couple of times a week with the kids. It was just beautiful!
Dodging the rain drops, we made it to our first stop which was the Museum of Man. Its a anthropology museum, full of all kinds of wonderful treasures. The first exhibit was called Gods and Gold; Ancient treasures from Mexico and Peru. They had a lot of pottery and figurines, but the kids and I were more interested in this display of skulls. They showed evidence of head binding and skull surgery (click on the posters to read them).
Its amazing to me that thousands of years ago people were performing surgeries like this, and not only doing it without modern technology, but that the patients actually lived through it!
Around the corner were these huge stones that were beautifully carved will hieroglyphics and pictures:
Judging by the person in the above picture, you can see how large the stones are (they are casts of the originals). Behind them in a little alcove was a group of really interesting artifacts, mostly relating to human sacrifices. I didn't get to read all I wanted to because Rowan wasn't terribly interested or patient through this part, although I did get some relief by bribing her with the pistachios I was carrying in my purse. I did enjoy reading what I could, the ancient customs and practices of indigenous people are so fascinating to me. The information in the picture below (you can click on it to make it big enough to read) was so interesting, although Killian was horrified when he read where the rulers would pierce their bodies!
We wound through the rest of that exhibit, and then headed upstairs to see Footsteps Through Time: Four Million Years Of Human Evolution. It was amazing! In the first section you could compare the human hand, foot and brain to that of dozens of other primates, and in the second area there were dozens of replicas of early humans and primates, information on where their bones were recovered, and how we were all linked together. Again, with Rowan in tow, I didn't get to read a lot of the information that they had, but just looking at the evolutionary changes between the displays was interesting:
They had a replica of the famous "Lucy":
The sign under her reads "Lucy was a full grown adult about 3.5 feet tall, and weighed about 60 pounds. Her small size indicated that she was female (males were larger). She spent some time in trees, but on the ground she walked on two legs." Its so amazing that scientists can gather so much information from bones, and put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
Our next stop was the one the kids were most excited to see....Mummies! Or Mommies as Rowan calls them! There were some authentic Egyptian mummies on display, still bound in their sarcophagus but they had CAT and Xray scans of the insides on display:
There were lots of other mummies on display that were not Egyptian:
(through CT scans they found that the mummy above was 7-8 months pregnant)
They also had shrunken heads! There was a sign explaining the process of shrinking heads, and the reasons for doing it. Killian was pretty horrified yet intrigued at the same time. They even shrunk the heads of sloths!
The kids both ended up wanting their pictures taken in front of these sarcophagus. I don't know why Killian chose his but Rowan wanted her picture taken in from of the one that was "sea sick". I guess because of its green face painting....on closer inspection, it does have a rather queasy look on its face!
Across the hall from the mummies was a children's area set up to explore daily life in ancient Egypt. The kids got into it right away, getting dressed up as Egyptians and walking like them too:
As we left the Museum of Man and headed to our next stop I was struck by the beauty of all the buildings in the park. The architecture was just amazing, and so intricately carved. This is the front of the Museum of Man:
And this is the tower and dome roof that are directly behind the face of the building above:
(This picture was taken from the tram at the Zoo)
I don't know what this building housed, but I had Matthew stop and take a picture of it for me because I thought it was so pretty:
This was our next stop, the Museum of Natural History:
Our main reason for stopping here was to see the Dinosaur exhibit they had on display. We have never seen dinosaur bones or replicas up close, and the kids were really interested in them. There were quite a few on display, this Mastodon was probably my favorite:
There were bones from a saber tooth tiger, and a sea cow and also a giant sloth:
And this enormous one of a extinct grey whale. You cant really get an idea of what the size was from this picture, but it was pretty impressive!
There was also a replica of a megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark. It looked hungry for some little boy:
We also saw a really interesting exhibit on Darwin and his theories. There were his personal notebooks, journals, letters and other objects that had belonged to him. I think Darwin's life and work are pretty fascinating, but I don't know much about him. So I would have loved to read everything, and take it all in but it was a pretty large exhibit. It would have taken at least an hour to properly go through and the kids didn't have enough patience for something like that. They also didn't allow pictures to be taken, so I have nothing to share from it!
I had a few people question why I would want to spend vacation seeing things like museums - they said that it would be boring for the kids. And parts of it were, like the Darwin and Mayan exhibits. But we knew that going into it, they are only 9 and 4 after all! They had a lot of fun exploring the things that were interesting to them, and I enjoyed watching them learn new ideas and information. For me part of the fun of going to a new place is seeing all that it has to offer. How are things different there compared to where we live, what things do they have that we cant see anywhere else (the San Diego Zoo being a great example of that). I know that some people go to the same spot every year for vacation, and are entirely happy doing that. And that's great! I go into a vacation assuming that's the only time I am going to get to that particular place...with all this world has to offer, I don't want to limit myself to one city, or one state, or heck - one continent! I want to see it all, and I want my kids to grow up experiencing new and exciting places, people and things. I hope that they grow up to be just as amazed and curious about this world as Matthew and I are!
After we were finished with the museums, it was time to head to the airport. We got there and bumbled through security, and set up camp to wait. Killian did some homework, as I had asked his teacher for a packet of all he would miss so we could bring it along. Mean mommy that I am ;) We ended up at the very back of the plane this time, and we were surrounded by screaming children, so it made the flight seem a little longer. We were SO happy to touch down in Portland, it felt really good to be home. Tanya picked us up, and we had a great drive home talking and catching up. We got home around 9:30, got the kids in bed, and then Matthew and I stayed up for a while talking and just being happy to be in our house, and see Harlow again.
Our vacation was so much fun, and I am really grateful that not only did Matthew win the trip, but that we were in a position to be able to take the kids and see all these amazing things with them. I have totally been bitten by the travel bug now, and my head is filled with thoughts and plans for future vacations. I cant wait to see where life will take us next!
We had decided to go to two of the museums in Balboa Park, an 1,200 acre area of San Diego that houses 15 major museums, lush gardens, cultural, the San Diego Zoo and much more. It was a stunningly beautiful place, and I would have loved to spend more time walking around taking it all in. The architecture alone was amazing, and the gardens were full of wonderful trees and flowers. Its not a place you would expect to find in the middle of a city, and if we lived anywhere close to it, I think I would be there a couple of times a week with the kids. It was just beautiful!
Dodging the rain drops, we made it to our first stop which was the Museum of Man. Its a anthropology museum, full of all kinds of wonderful treasures. The first exhibit was called Gods and Gold; Ancient treasures from Mexico and Peru. They had a lot of pottery and figurines, but the kids and I were more interested in this display of skulls. They showed evidence of head binding and skull surgery (click on the posters to read them).
Its amazing to me that thousands of years ago people were performing surgeries like this, and not only doing it without modern technology, but that the patients actually lived through it!
Around the corner were these huge stones that were beautifully carved will hieroglyphics and pictures:
Judging by the person in the above picture, you can see how large the stones are (they are casts of the originals). Behind them in a little alcove was a group of really interesting artifacts, mostly relating to human sacrifices. I didn't get to read all I wanted to because Rowan wasn't terribly interested or patient through this part, although I did get some relief by bribing her with the pistachios I was carrying in my purse. I did enjoy reading what I could, the ancient customs and practices of indigenous people are so fascinating to me. The information in the picture below (you can click on it to make it big enough to read) was so interesting, although Killian was horrified when he read where the rulers would pierce their bodies!
We wound through the rest of that exhibit, and then headed upstairs to see Footsteps Through Time: Four Million Years Of Human Evolution. It was amazing! In the first section you could compare the human hand, foot and brain to that of dozens of other primates, and in the second area there were dozens of replicas of early humans and primates, information on where their bones were recovered, and how we were all linked together. Again, with Rowan in tow, I didn't get to read a lot of the information that they had, but just looking at the evolutionary changes between the displays was interesting:
They had a replica of the famous "Lucy":
The sign under her reads "Lucy was a full grown adult about 3.5 feet tall, and weighed about 60 pounds. Her small size indicated that she was female (males were larger). She spent some time in trees, but on the ground she walked on two legs." Its so amazing that scientists can gather so much information from bones, and put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
Our next stop was the one the kids were most excited to see....Mummies! Or Mommies as Rowan calls them! There were some authentic Egyptian mummies on display, still bound in their sarcophagus but they had CAT and Xray scans of the insides on display:
There were lots of other mummies on display that were not Egyptian:
(through CT scans they found that the mummy above was 7-8 months pregnant)
They also had shrunken heads! There was a sign explaining the process of shrinking heads, and the reasons for doing it. Killian was pretty horrified yet intrigued at the same time. They even shrunk the heads of sloths!
The kids both ended up wanting their pictures taken in front of these sarcophagus. I don't know why Killian chose his but Rowan wanted her picture taken in from of the one that was "sea sick". I guess because of its green face painting....on closer inspection, it does have a rather queasy look on its face!
Across the hall from the mummies was a children's area set up to explore daily life in ancient Egypt. The kids got into it right away, getting dressed up as Egyptians and walking like them too:
As we left the Museum of Man and headed to our next stop I was struck by the beauty of all the buildings in the park. The architecture was just amazing, and so intricately carved. This is the front of the Museum of Man:
And this is the tower and dome roof that are directly behind the face of the building above:
(This picture was taken from the tram at the Zoo)
I don't know what this building housed, but I had Matthew stop and take a picture of it for me because I thought it was so pretty:
This was our next stop, the Museum of Natural History:
Our main reason for stopping here was to see the Dinosaur exhibit they had on display. We have never seen dinosaur bones or replicas up close, and the kids were really interested in them. There were quite a few on display, this Mastodon was probably my favorite:
There were bones from a saber tooth tiger, and a sea cow and also a giant sloth:
And this enormous one of a extinct grey whale. You cant really get an idea of what the size was from this picture, but it was pretty impressive!
There was also a replica of a megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark. It looked hungry for some little boy:
We also saw a really interesting exhibit on Darwin and his theories. There were his personal notebooks, journals, letters and other objects that had belonged to him. I think Darwin's life and work are pretty fascinating, but I don't know much about him. So I would have loved to read everything, and take it all in but it was a pretty large exhibit. It would have taken at least an hour to properly go through and the kids didn't have enough patience for something like that. They also didn't allow pictures to be taken, so I have nothing to share from it!
I had a few people question why I would want to spend vacation seeing things like museums - they said that it would be boring for the kids. And parts of it were, like the Darwin and Mayan exhibits. But we knew that going into it, they are only 9 and 4 after all! They had a lot of fun exploring the things that were interesting to them, and I enjoyed watching them learn new ideas and information. For me part of the fun of going to a new place is seeing all that it has to offer. How are things different there compared to where we live, what things do they have that we cant see anywhere else (the San Diego Zoo being a great example of that). I know that some people go to the same spot every year for vacation, and are entirely happy doing that. And that's great! I go into a vacation assuming that's the only time I am going to get to that particular place...with all this world has to offer, I don't want to limit myself to one city, or one state, or heck - one continent! I want to see it all, and I want my kids to grow up experiencing new and exciting places, people and things. I hope that they grow up to be just as amazed and curious about this world as Matthew and I are!
After we were finished with the museums, it was time to head to the airport. We got there and bumbled through security, and set up camp to wait. Killian did some homework, as I had asked his teacher for a packet of all he would miss so we could bring it along. Mean mommy that I am ;) We ended up at the very back of the plane this time, and we were surrounded by screaming children, so it made the flight seem a little longer. We were SO happy to touch down in Portland, it felt really good to be home. Tanya picked us up, and we had a great drive home talking and catching up. We got home around 9:30, got the kids in bed, and then Matthew and I stayed up for a while talking and just being happy to be in our house, and see Harlow again.
Our vacation was so much fun, and I am really grateful that not only did Matthew win the trip, but that we were in a position to be able to take the kids and see all these amazing things with them. I have totally been bitten by the travel bug now, and my head is filled with thoughts and plans for future vacations. I cant wait to see where life will take us next!