SoCal Girls: Natural History

Katelyn, our wonderful babysitter and a nursing student, watched the babies on Monday (President's Day) so that Chris and I could spend some time with Alana. It was a blustery, rainy day, so we decided to spend the day indoors and check out Fleet Science Center. Well, parking was no problem, but the line (in the rain!) for the Science Center was unbelievable. We realized that it would be insane (both to stand in line for 30 minutes with a toddler in the pouring rain) then to go inside with said toddler and thousands of other unruly kids sloshing about. So we spied the natural history museum only 100 yards away and decided a change of plan was in order. Wow. Can I tell you that we have been disappointed with the museums in SD? The art museum is just sad and this museum is no better. They had zero dinosaur skeletons and virtually not much of anything else! It was four floors of nothing in fact. Sure, I'm spoiled. I've been to natural history museums in NYC and DC. Both are fabulous, outstanding. But these museums don't even make an effort. Luckily, Alana is still easily amused. In fact, she thought the payphone was an exhibit and we played with that for a bit. (Actually, isn't that from the pre-cambric period? Have you even seen a payphone in years?) She also enjoyed this room with stuffed birds, rodents, and a mountain lion (think taxodermy) that had a cool magnetic wall with those words meant to form poems and profound thoughts. We did have fun, just because hanging with Alana is a blast...most of the time ;-)