Last weekend was amazing. It will be awhile before we can top an experience like three shows in one weekend. This weekend is cold again, but gorgeous sunshine with not a cloud in site. Janet is still resting up from last week’s trifecta, but I can’t waste a beautiful day inside the apartment. This morning I searched around some of my favorite sites like New England Network and Museums of New England for something close by.  I was all set to visit the Addison Gallery of Art in Andover when I noticed it didn’t open until noon. Instead, I headed down to Cambridge to visit the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and saved the Addison for another day. The HMNH is on the 3rd and 4th floors of a non-descript red brick building just north of the Harvard Yard. I was all set to pay my $15 entrance fee when the cashier informed me that from 9-12 on Sundays, Massachusetts residents get in free. Oh happy day!!

The museum isn’t huge, but it is full of fascinating exhibits. The first room I visited was filled with glass reproductions of flowers and their botanical parts. The museum is designed to display the research of Harvard scientists, so all the exhibits have great descriptions. I really had to look closely to verify that these were actual glass sculptures. Incredible is probably the only word I can think to describe the work. Even the apples were made of glass.

The second room on my tour was filled with just about every rock and mineral known to mankind. I’m sure my daughter’s friend, Ariana, could have spent a week in this room examining all the specimens.

The Peabody museum of anthropology is a wing off the HMNH and contains many artifacts from native and meso American cultures. I particularly enjoyed the exhibit titled the artistry of war that contained a suit of armor made from coconut fiber, and a samurai suit of armor. Farther in the wing was a very interesting Day of the Dead shrine and puppets from Java!

The other side of the museum contained animal specimens and skeletons from millions of years of life on earth. As I mentioned before, this museum is a showcase of the brilliant minds that do research here at Harvard. Many art students were positioned throughout the museum drawing sketches of the taxidermy animals. There were also many signs posting directions for school groups that reminded me this was a perfect field trip for science teachers.

After seeing all the exhibits, I stopped at the gift shop and purchased a bee ornament to add to our collection of animals for our Christmas tree. It was a perfect way to remember the experience. I walked back to the quad and enjoyed a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich from a local food truck.  I realize this adventure wouldn’t thrill everyone, I’m not even sure how much Janet would have liked it. But for me, channeling my inner geek, it was a fantastic experience.

 

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller