[Author’s note: This is an edited reprint of an article from 2008]
They brought a special display to the Houston Museum of Natural Science in August and the display was ending next week. I realized this was one of those once in a lifetime deals you can’t pass up
For the first time ever the remains of Lucy, the first step in human evolution, were displayed outside of Ethiopia. Australopithecus Afarensis was the first step on the long road to humans.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is located near downtown in the museum district. If Houston had a cosmopolitan center then this would be it. Wide boulevards, parks, a trolley, it might remind you of Central Park in downtown New York City. The museum itself is somewhat small for a major city but its a favorite for school kids. I certainly adored coming here even as a kid back in the 1980s.
I bought a ticket for the display carrying my camera and cell phone. I expected they wouldn’t let me take pictures. The flash can damage old relics, so I had my cell phone camera too, but to my surprise they made me turn that off too. So I couldn’t get any pictures.
But pictures don’t do justice to this. Tiny little bones, just fragments really. You could see the relationship, the long path to our skeleton, but just barely. They made up a model of what she would have looked like. Just barely 3 foot tall. There was a 7-year-old girl with her parents. They were looking at the model and I couldn’t help but look back and forth and compare them to each other.
I wandered out of the display and went to look at some of the permanent exhibits.
I mentioned diamonds didn’t I? The museum does have one of the best jewel displays around
A pirates hoard of gems of all types. Glittering in their cases. If you stood in the right spot you would be blinded by the gleam
Being Houston, it had to have a display on the oil industry. Sponsored by who else but Exxon. The one thing i didn’t like is that since kids are the prime target for the museum most of those displays are geared for kids with lots of buttons and Disney like videos for them. Kind of dumbs it down for the rest of us.
This is a well log. When I first started out I had to read these everyday. Shudder.
Last but not least a model of an armadillo from long ago,
Overall it was worth it to see Lucy, something I may never see again in my lifetime and something that most people wont ever see.
But mostly I just enjoy wandering the cool darkened halls of the museum. There’s something soothing about being in this building with all the knowledge and study that it represents. I feel rejuvenated just coming here.
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