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Date with rocks and bones.
Apr. 28th, 2002 04:45 pmA while back, I mentioned that I thought Ben was getting much more of my active-date time than either of my other partners. Yesterday ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
curiousangel's gaming day was cancelled, and so he and I took the opportunity to go on a real date.
Being geeks, we decided on the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I've been wanting to go there for some time, and although Misha would rather have gone to the Air and Space Museum, it wasn't that difficult to convince him otherwise. And the Natural History museum was fascinating.
We didn't even get halfway through the collections: bones and rocks, and that about covered it. The museum has a great dinosaur exhibit: full skeletons of triceratops, diplodocus, stegosaurus, allosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, and several smaller dinosaurs, as well as skeletons of dinosaur precursor reptiles and pre-Ice Age mammals. Their aim was clearly to teach paleontology-as-science as well as teaching dinosaurs per se: for example, there was a window-lined working lab right on the museum floor where the staff is conserving and making casts of dinosaur skeletons. I was also fascinated to see displays and diagrams of excavations showing just how the bones were found.
Bones, bones, bones. An intact mammoth skeleton. Saber-tooth cats and dire wolves found in La Brea, with placards explaining that these were elderly, diseased predators taking advantage of the tar pits' immobilization of their prey. The Hall of Bones upstairs, with skeletons of all the major classes of animals and fish.
And rocks: the Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals. The Hope Diamond. The National Gem and Mineral Collection. The front room of the collection is the "Gem Room," with finished jewelry, and it was so crowded that we couldn't get close enough to the display cases to see anything. But walking into the second room led you to the crystal displays - and it's hard to imagine that the gem collection could possibly be more spectacular. Every size and description of stone, arranged by composition, arranged by crystal shape, arranged by color. Massive growths of quartz. A geode the size of my computer monitor. The Star of Bombay sapphire. Overwhelming beauty and variety and sheer strangeness of crystals. Not to mention the meteorites, but by that time we were tired.
A date with bones and rocks. And dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant near the Smithsonian, featuring a crabmeat quesadilla. And home to watch the Braves lose, and then to bed. An entirely successful day.
Today Bill has come to spend the day. We all went to church together, and now Bill's meticulously piecing together the bodice for my ball dress, while I'm doing the scutwork of hand-sewing hooks and eyes into tapes. He's got the pleats for the overdress pinned in place too. I actually begin to believe that the dress will be finished in time for the Washington Ball in May.
Such a good weekend.
curiousangel's gaming day was cancelled, and so he and I took the opportunity to go on a real date.Being geeks, we decided on the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I've been wanting to go there for some time, and although Misha would rather have gone to the Air and Space Museum, it wasn't that difficult to convince him otherwise. And the Natural History museum was fascinating.
We didn't even get halfway through the collections: bones and rocks, and that about covered it. The museum has a great dinosaur exhibit: full skeletons of triceratops, diplodocus, stegosaurus, allosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, and several smaller dinosaurs, as well as skeletons of dinosaur precursor reptiles and pre-Ice Age mammals. Their aim was clearly to teach paleontology-as-science as well as teaching dinosaurs per se: for example, there was a window-lined working lab right on the museum floor where the staff is conserving and making casts of dinosaur skeletons. I was also fascinated to see displays and diagrams of excavations showing just how the bones were found.
Bones, bones, bones. An intact mammoth skeleton. Saber-tooth cats and dire wolves found in La Brea, with placards explaining that these were elderly, diseased predators taking advantage of the tar pits' immobilization of their prey. The Hall of Bones upstairs, with skeletons of all the major classes of animals and fish.
And rocks: the Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals. The Hope Diamond. The National Gem and Mineral Collection. The front room of the collection is the "Gem Room," with finished jewelry, and it was so crowded that we couldn't get close enough to the display cases to see anything. But walking into the second room led you to the crystal displays - and it's hard to imagine that the gem collection could possibly be more spectacular. Every size and description of stone, arranged by composition, arranged by crystal shape, arranged by color. Massive growths of quartz. A geode the size of my computer monitor. The Star of Bombay sapphire. Overwhelming beauty and variety and sheer strangeness of crystals. Not to mention the meteorites, but by that time we were tired.
A date with bones and rocks. And dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant near the Smithsonian, featuring a crabmeat quesadilla. And home to watch the Braves lose, and then to bed. An entirely successful day.
Today Bill has come to spend the day. We all went to church together, and now Bill's meticulously piecing together the bodice for my ball dress, while I'm doing the scutwork of hand-sewing hooks and eyes into tapes. He's got the pleats for the overdress pinned in place too. I actually begin to believe that the dress will be finished in time for the Washington Ball in May.
Such a good weekend.
