Today was the members-only preview of the new Dinosaur Hall at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Fortunately, I am indeed a member. My Sunday afternoon was well-spent with the dinosaurs!
Upon entering the dino hall, you are greeted by a triceratops and a brontosaurus (I believe it is a brontosaurus. Please correct me if I am wrong). The long neck of the brontosaurus left me awestruck!
I tried tweeting a photo of the fossils upon entering, but unfortunately, I had no signal in the hall.
This exhibit seems to love T-Rexes. It seriously seemed like they were everywhere!
These little guys are oddly cute, despite how strange they look.
Apparently no blog post about a museum visit is complete without obligatory photos of me looking at some type of interactive display or looking at my cell phone. Alas, I am doing both in the above.
The sizes of some of the fossils are amazing. Can you believe this is only half of a dinosaur’s leg? It’s as big as I am!
This dinosaur was found with an unborn baby inside! If you look closely, you can see the fossilized fetus in the center, through the bones on the bottom.
I fell in love with this quote upon reading it. I completely agree with Proust. I am a sucker for quotes.
I was very pleased to find that the Dinosaur Hall actually extends into two halls for more dinosaur fun.
The second hall is home to the Tyrannosaurus Rex family – adult, teenager, and child!
Overwhelmed by all the awesome displays, I had almost completely missed this guy! This stegosaurus is definitely one of the exhibits I found most interesting. The poor stegosaurus has to fight off the T-Rex, who is about to attack him from behind! It is amazing how this stegosaurus display consists of mostly casts of fossils, with a few actual fossils connected. Apparently a T-Rex fossil was found with a stegosaurus’s spike (from its tail) stuck into it. Defense!
Overall, I was very impressed by the Dinosaur Hall. I wish I had more time to read each and every description for all the displays. That shall be my goal on my next visit!
With a few minutes to spare and having never seen the Butterfly Pavilion yet (even though I’m an NHM member!), we headed over to catch a glimpse of some butterflies before closing!
I have never been very intrigued by butterflies and moths, but the two above were pretty interesting! Butterflies attempting to make butterfly babies? Oh, my!
Dress – Banana Republic, tote – One Language “Moi” Tote
The great weather and beautiful natural sunlight was too good to pass up!
I love the grassy park area right outside of the Natural History Museum, and I apparently also loved this tree.
Right before arriving at the Natural History Museum, I was on a quest to find good coffee close by. I hadn’t had my coffee fix for the day yet! Using my handy-dandy smartphone, I was pleased to find Spring for Coffee. Granted, Spring for Coffee is a few miles passed the Natural History Museum, but it was totally worth it. Spring for Coffee is a tiny little coffee shop on Spring Street that serves a wide array of different coffees, including Blue Bottle! Apparently the owner of Spring for Coffee has exclusive rights with Blue Bottle, and only his establishments can serve Blue Bottle coffee in the Los Angeles area. Blue Bottle Coffee is a small chain of coffee shops available in the San Francisco Bay Area, with, I believe, one location in New York. I absolutely loved my latte at the Blue Bottle location at SFMOMA on my last visit to San Francisco! Back to Spring for Coffee, I don’t think they used Blue Bottle coffee for my order, but regardless, my latte definitely goes on the list of one of the best lattes I’ve had. Remember to order a “regular” size as the “small” is seriously quite small.
