List Item #1: Museum of Life and Science

List Item #1: Museum of Life and Science http://www.ncmls.org/
Location: Durham, NC
Date: 2/28/10
Cost: $15.44 (plus gas)
Results: Freaking awesome.

So it turned out that Steve has never been to the Museum of Life and Science. This had to be fixed. I spent many a frivolous teenage hour in that museum running around with my friends and really wanted to show Steve how awesome it was before we leave. Flush with dough from our tax return and needing a break from worrying about moving and law school applications, we decided that Sunday would be the perfect day to check it out.
The museum opens at noon on Sundays, which was just enough time to do some serious lounging and heavy breakfast eating before heading out. The drive wasn't too bad, we listened to music and obsessed about which law schools were likely to admit me. Steve was surprised when we arrived, he was expecting it to be a lot farther away.
We got to the Museum almost exactly at noon and were given some corporate passes by the people ahead of us in line! That saved us the $24 bucks that it would have cost us for admission, so we went into the Museum very pleased with ourselves.
The first part of the Museum that we attacked was the weather exhibit. Steve was enamored by the "tornado machine" and I still liked the "dune machine" that I had enjoyed years ago.


We explored the rest of the indoor portion of the Museum and then went outside, where we climbed all over the jungle gym like idiots. It was a blast, and no one looked at us funny, even though we were the only folks over three feet tall doing so.



After looking at the farm animals (and having a cow crush on Steven), we decided to take a break and get some lunch at the cafe. We were really pleasantly surprised by what they had, it was a little pricey, but the food was WAY better than any other zoo or museum food we'd ever tried. Steve had a BLT and I had an egg salad sandwich, which were both served on delicious ciabatta bread.
We noticed on our map that 2 pm was the time that the keepers released ladybugs in the Butterfly House, so we made our way down there after eating lunch. The Butterfly House is a beautiful place and we spent a long time looking around and enjoying it. The ladybug release was a little disappointing, but it was still quite fun.



After we left the Butterfly House, we took a walk around the grounds to see the bears, lemurs and wolves. The bear habitat is incredible and HUGE, the lemurs were asleep and the lone wolf was incredibly depressing. We also spent a good bit of time playing with the "wind toys."
All in all we had a good trip. The weather was lovely and the museum wasn't so crowded that we couldn't experience everything we wanted to experience. It makes me a little sad that we probably won't be back for a long while, but I'm glad we went.