american museum of natural history.

during my recent trip to new jersey to visit my husband's family and our friends' new addition to their family, we decided to take a day for ourselves and venture into the city.  now in all the visit's we've make to new jersey over the past few years it always seems we never have the time or the money to head into new york and this trip, we had both :)  i have always wanted to visit the american museum of natural history so that was our one and only destination.  we took the train from woodbridge, nj to penn station, about a 40 minute ride, and from there took the subway straight to the museum.  in total we were there for about five hours, and with five floors to see we definitely didn't see it all, but here are the exhibits we did hit.

one of really cool mosaic animals in the subway tunnel into the museum.

the entrance, which is dedicated to theodore roosevelt for his work on the national parks.

a nifty pattern from one of the windows inside the museum.

my weight on the moon. why can't the scales here be more like the moon?

details from the planet earth exhibit.

         

peoples of the pacific northwest, the only people exhibit we had time to see. it was dark and hard to get many photos :(

 my second favorite exhibit, the hall of biodiversity.  the walls were super tall and covered with specimens from all over the world and it was so cool to see different varieties of the same species in conjunction with each other.  i want a wall like this in my house or maybe something similar in my future child's room. or is that too much?

well i am not a historian and forget what time period these are from, but it was the time of woolly mammoths, saber tooth tigers, and giant sloths.

a view of the city out of the lookout on one of the upper levels.

and finally........the dinosaurs.  this is what i was looking forward to most and it did not fail to deliver.  the largest collection of dinosaur bones in the world.  truly awe inspiring.  if you ever get a chance to visit the museum solely for this reason, please do. i know i have already mentioned my future, non-existent children once in this post, but i will mention them one more time to say that i will make sure they get to see these someday.