Colorado Trip 2015: Fantastic Beasts And Where We Found Them

Now that the entire Nash clan had arrived in Colorado, we were ready to go play and have some fun! Our first big outing was to a place that our whole family loves...the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. My siblings and I were regular visitors here as children, and we take our kids for a visit every time we are in Colorado. We couldn't wait to see what was new at the museum (and old...there are a lot of permanent exhibits my kids love as well).

But before we could go museum-hopping, it was time to eat! Nathan found a restaurant close by called the Atomic Cowboy. It offered biscuit sandwiches...which sounds a little weird until you see what they look like:

Suffice it to say, they were mouth-wateringly delicious. And this restaurant sold pizza, too...very big slices of pizza.

With our stomachs full, it was time to head into the museum. We had fun checking out all the "usual" stuff, like the dinosaur hall.

On this occasion, there were actual paleontologists working on-site. One of them was cleaning a small dinosaur skeleton, and the kids even got to ask him questions while they watched him work close up!

Of course, we also had to pay quick visits to the nature dioramas (of which there are quite a lot!), the Egyptian mummies, and the space hall, with its Sputnik mock-up...

...its space-probe trackers...

...and its cool projected topographical maps of all the main celestial bodies in the solar system. It was so cool to see Mars rotating in front of me. I could have stared at it for hours!

 

However, the most exciting part of the museum this time was our visit to its latest traveling exhibit: "Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns, And Mermaids." In other words, just the sort of things our imaginative girls like!

This was the one real animal in the whole exhibit.

Of course, the museum wasn't trying to argue that any of these creatures were actually real; that would kind of defeat their mission statement of teaching kids about real stuff. However, the exhibit was actually a sneaky history lesson, providing lots of historical context for the origins of these legends. Some of these creatures appeared in legends throughout many cultures, and it was interesting to see how they evolved in mankind's imaginations over time.

But that didn't stop the museum from putting up lots of life-size sculptures of awesome fictional creatures...like a kraken...

...a griffin...

...a pegasus...

...a mighty jackalope...

...a roc (giant mythical bird)...

CAN YOU SMELL WHAT THE ROC IS COOKING?

...and, of course, this lovely unicorn.

 Let's not forget the dragons! They were my favorite part (Lorelai's too, by the looks of it).

 

There were some more interactive parts of the exhibit, too...there was a craft station, in which the kids could use crayons, stencils, etc. to create their own "mythical creature."

 

And there was a green screen photography booth at the end, which transported my girls into a fantasy world...a dangerous fantasy world...

This is possibly my favorite picture of the girls from this whole trip. They actually had a second picture taken (in which Aurora's head was completely "incinerated" by dragon-fire), but the computer crashed and the photo was lost. Oh well, this one was pretty awesome too. All in all, it was a successful trip to the museum.

Then it was back to Grandma's house for more fun and games. I am so glad our daughters love playing with their cousins. They had a great time with each other the whole trip!