Bell Museum

Today Offspring #2 led me and a couple other folk to the new and improved Bell Museum.  I was anxious to see if my favorite dioramas were moved from the old museum. The new building is large and roomy. I liked the art deco style of the old museum though more than the expansive space and large windows of this one. I might like it more in the summer though. Seeing the white out conditions outside was not a pleasant sight to my eyes. We walked upstairs first and spent a good hour and a half up there.  I was pleased to see the wood duck diorama was still there. That one was my favorite because I feel like I could walk right into the window and down to the lake. In this diorama the baby ducks are being called out of the nest by their mother. One little wood duck landed on his or her back. The classic wolf diorama at Shovel Point on the North Shore was there. The moose is still there. The elk at Inspiration Peak are still there. The sand hill crane diorama is still there.  The snow goose diorama is still there. I am sure it wasn't easy to move those dioramas. They had to deal with unsafe things like mercury and asbestos in the materials. Added to the museum are interactive computers.  Near the sand hill crane diorama was a screen with a sand hill crane on it.  In front of the screen were two sand hill crane feet outlines. So I stood on the crane feet outlines. The screen told me to imitate the crane.  The crane bowed.  I bowed. The crane flapped the wings.  I flapped my arms. The crane jumped. With  my artificial hips I am not supposed to jump but I jumped anyway. We went through the same three steps again. Then the screen showed me acting like a crane. Now everyone in the room could see me acting like a crane. We all laughed at that image. One of the docents is a man I met with the master naturalist program. I couldn't remember his name but I did talk to him.  He remembered me too. In one area of the upper floor they had a model of a wooly mammoth, a giant beaver and a musk ox. Downstairs they had a touch and see room and we spent 45 minutes in there touching and seeing.  A large exhibit on climate and weather took a large area on the north side of the first floor. I learned a lot today.  I don't remember all of it. But I do remember this. One of the most resilient creatures on this planet is a tardigrade. I had never heard of this microscopic creature that lives on moss. This tiny creature is so tough it can live in the arctic, near a volcano, on mountain tops and in the deep sea.  Known as the water bear this creature survived exposure to space. Look at this photo of a tardigrade.  Tell me you won't have nightmares about this eight legged creature tonight!