Tag: Museum


Jul
2015

Day 4-5 – Solar System Walk/Ride

categories: Alaska, Happenings, Travel

In the afternoon, Mom, Gregory, Nathan, Dad, and I, went out and biked some of a coastal trial along Cook Inlet. Along the trail (and some of 5th Avenue) there are scale models of the sun and planets of the solar system. Yesterday we went out and biked the trail up to Neptune. The Sun and four inner planets are located on 5th Avenue, and as we did not see those yesterday went out this morning and saw them. We did not go out to Pluto, but saw it this evening, as it is at the park where Uncle Chris and Aunt Shana got married. Altogether, we rode 14.6 miles yesterday.

And… here is the usual collage of photos. These are photos from yesterday; today's photos are below.

  1. A view of brush, mud flats, and Cook Inlet.
  2. Saturn close up
  3. Uranus
  4. At one place on the trail, we could view an airport, and several planes flew over while we watched.
  5. Neptune
  6. The entire signboard for Saturn
  7. We saw two moose!

 

This morning, Mom took us kids out to see the Sun and inner planets. We walked along 5th Avenue and – surprise, surprise – I took pictures.

  1. Mercury
  2. Earth (these photos are not in order)
  3. The Sun, with a three year old for scale.
  4. Venus
  5. The Sun was in a very nice park, with a lot of information about the sun, the solar system and space in general, and the solar system walk.
  6. Mercury again – notice how small it is.

But, Mercury is not as small as pluto. Can you even see it? Please comment on my blog if you can't, and I will try to figure out a way to get you a more zoomed-in photo.

 
Although I saw both Mars and Jupiter, and read just about all of the Mars sign, I somehow [accidentally] managed not to get a picture of either planet.

 


Jul
2015

Day 4 – Alaska Museum of Science and Nature

categories: Alaska, Happenings, Travel

Yesterday our family went to the Alaska Museum of Science and Nature. It was more of nature than science, and really cool prehistoric nature at that. It had a lot of fossils and history, as well as several models of prehistoric creatures and some geology. It also talked about earthquakes and a little about the Alaskan native peoples. Most of this, however, was in two display cases showing some tools and garments that native peoples had made. There was even a gut parka, which is what it sounds like!

As usual, I have some photos to share.

1. A stuffed black bear, the white line above which shows how much bigger a polar bear would be. The brown bear shows how much bigger an Alaskan Short Faced bear would have been than even the polar bear!

2. The front of the museum.

3. The skull of an American Lion, which was much bigger than the African Lion of today is. This skull was discovered by a twelve year old boy while he was on a family canoe trip.

4. A real fossilized mammoth tusk, which we were able to touch! A sign said that the original owner of the tusk had covered it in Elmer’s Glue, but did not offer any comment on whether that was a good thing or not.

5. Selected pieces from the collection of Joe Turnbow.

6. A piece of fossilized mammoth skull. To make them light, yet strong, enough to work for the mammoth, mammoth skulls had a hollow honeycomb pattern on the inside.

7. Skull of a Zygorhiza.

8. Model of a Tylosaurus. Note the diver in the lower left side. He’s to scale. In real life, this one would have been about 45 feet long – but Tylosauri(?) could have grown to 80 feet!

9. A tree that was frozen inside a glacier for 2,000 years! It came out feeling just about like it was before it got frozen. We were able to touch it, and it felt just about like ordinary wood, though maybe a little stony. Despite its age, the tree was definitely not petrified.

 

I think that’s just about all for the museum, but I have some comments I would like to add about the blog in general.

All the photos you will see on my blog, unless otherwise specified, are ones that I have taken myself, and I have made all the collages on here also.

Please leave a comment on this post / email / message me if you would like to be texted whenever I post.

And, thank you very much for reading my blog!