The Recovering Hopper: Day at the Museum

Mecca for me, growing up in the 70s in the New Jersey suburbs, was the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I went there five, maybe six times over the years: school field trips, Cub Scout outings, once with my mother and aunt, twice with girlfriends a long time ago. Yesterday, we took the Little One there for the afternoon. First time I’ve been there since 1992 or so, first time the wife’s ever visited.

We had a great time.

The wife took a vacation day; the morning was somewhat lazy and relaxed. The skies were overcast and it was misty out, so we all dressed for warmth and comfort and brought along the big golf umbrella. Fortunately, traffic was nonexistent when we left - we got in to the city in no time, found parking, and got to the museum by 1. Little One was very excited about all this.

There were a couple of special exhibits showing at the museum; after much discussion we settled on seeing the butterfly attraction. We bought our tickets and went there first. In a self-contained greenhouse in the museum, through two double-doors guarded by museum personnel, was a miniature rain forest, very moist and heated to 82 degrees. Inside were over 500 butterflies of varying shapes, sizes, and colors, from all over the world. Some had wingspans as big as your outstretched hands. Some had designs on the wings reminiscent of lizards or snakes to scare off predators. Little One was enthralled and tried desperately to get a butterfly to land on her outstretched arms, to no avail.

Since we figured on her low staying power, we decided to hit the biggest and best attractions first. These were primarily my memories from youth: the giant hanging blue whale, the twenty and thirty-foot tall dinosaur skeletons, the gems and minerals and meteors. Scanning a wall chart, Little One wanted to see the “tiki statue”.

Over the course of three hours we probably skimmed through half the museum. I got my fix, Little One got hers. After two hours she started getting quite random and distracted; no doubt her little feet were starting to ache. Picture taking was no longer fun for her, but she gamely fulfilled our wishes. We stopped at the gift shop and she bought herself a butterfly magnet and an amethyst geode (the minerals were probably her favorite exhibit).

Afterwards we grabbed burgers and fries across the street, then stopped in a cupcake shop on the way to the parking garage. We got home by 6:30, all of us unusually exhausted, and well-satisfied with a fine vacation day. And Little One has the benefit of a great tale for when she returns to school next week, “What I did on my vacation.”