Museum Time

When in one of the cultural capitals of the world, this bunch can't resist heading to a museum. We spent time in three on this trip to New York.

I'm starting with our visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), even though it was the last stop on our museum circuit, because it had the most impressive collection of Egyptian artifacts I've had the pleasure to see.

If we saw a fourth of what the museum holds I would be surprised. Here are just a few snippets of the Arms & Armor Wing.

Our first stop was actually to the New York Historical Society, which is located next to the American Museum of Natural History (that one is up next). My guess is a lot of people mistake it for the history museum because we, and the three other people behind us, were asked multiple times if we knew we were buying tickets for the historical society.

I added this stop to our list when I found out there was a special exhibit on the art work of Ludwig Bemelmans, the author of the classic children's series "Madeline."

The collection made my day, even though Jack and Mattie whined and complained a good bit during this stop. Good thing there were touchable exhibits in the children's hall.

There were also other interesting elements in this museum; we just had one child extra eager to head next door.

This was our second time at the American Museum of Natural History. Here's a trick about both it and The Met. You have to have tickets for admittance, but it's only a recommended price. We were so confused by this last year that we paid the full price. Then we realized we could get in for free if we wanted. Even so, we paid a small fee for each this time; it somehow felt wrong to pay nothing.