Houston Museum of Natural Sciences outing

I dropped by Houston Museum of Natural Sciences this weekend. But perhaps more importantly, Saturday morning I went out of the loop! I live inside the loop and rarely venture out. I was out for the first time since... spring break when I drove people to the airport. That's about two months living inside the loop. Whoa.

Since I'm on my No Spend Month, I parked on campus and walked over to the museum. I didn't mind too much because the scenery en route was beautiful.

Sam Houston statue

The Reflecting Pool

I wandered around the museum. I liked the Wildlife Exhibits because there is no other way we would actually observe these scenes in real life. The animals would run away three miles before we got there. Many of the animals were donated from zoo's... which made me picture zoo's as stuffed animal factories. Look at this Circle of Life in action.

I made my way to the Gems and Minerals, where I actually recognized and appreciated the minerals and gemstones displayed (thanks Petrology!). I went inside the Gem Vault (probably the most popular exhibit here- so many ladies ooh, aah-ing). The jewelry pieces were beautiful, but I thought it was fascinating that these gemstones- rocks, really- have no intrinsic value. Humans have arbitrarily assigned them to have value, mean something, cost $$$$.

My favorite exhibit was the Energy Hall especially the Geovator. We went down 7,000 underground into an oil well with a guide! I learned what fracking is (Hello, I was down there when they used it- boom!) and learned a bunch of interesting information I never thought about (How do we find oil? What does it look like when we drill into it? How do we get oil out?).

I feel I have come in a full circle. About a year ago, Lo and I went on a field trip here. I had decided to take a gap year but had no definite plans. By the time I came back from the field trip, I had a job.

Look at this shirt- I want. This reminded me of the "dinosaurs find life's meaning" cartoon I wrote about a while back.

Yikes....