To the Museum

Scott and I went to the Carnegie Natural History and Art Museum earlier this week with our dear friend Matt.  It was a nice, relaxing day before what we thought would be the regular stresses of moving week.  Turns out our moving stresses have turned into it being the first day of our lease at the new place and not being able to move anything in (or knowing if we can do our final move with big furniture Sunday with the truck we already rented and the friends who are only available on non-working days).  The landlord allowed the previous tenants to stay until the 28th, checked the place out on the 29th and decided they have to steam the carpet or possibly replace it since no one cleaned out when they left.  They also smoked during their move-out and left ashes everywhere and mounds of cobwebs and just lots of dirt.  Now we are waiting to hear when possible carpet removal and cleaning will happen and dealing with a landlord that seems put out by us being concerned about having no knowledge of when we can move.  I'm really glad we had a fun weekend before knowing all of this.

We haven't been to the museum since last August so it was nice to go back.  The dinosaurs were as awesome as ever and I love the first part of the art museum with all of the old paintings in their gaudy frames but I think my favorite part is the big glass-enclosed dioramas of animals.  I love the early 20th century vibe from this area (I kind of wish we still did mat paintings for movies).  I especially love the last bit of the natural history museum.  There is a hallway that leads from there to the art side and it's just lined with old cases of bird mounts.  Most of them the kind where they didn't even pose the birds but just stuffed them and laid them on their backs.  I'm glad they still keep these displays around.  

This next display is my absolute favorite.  I just love seeing all of these guys in one area.  It's like a 3D version of my old Pennsylvanian animal books.  I was looking at most of the creatures in here and I think I've seen close to 80% of them in the wild (and most in the area directly around my house) which is pretty rad.

All in all a pretty fun day.