Night at the Museum

Owen used to be really into dinosaurs, and as such, we used to spend a lot of our time at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum's Dinosaur Hall. But back in 2014, when Owen was seven, they closed the hall for renovations. We've tried to fill the gap in the meantime, but as time marched on, it looked like his obsession with dinosaurs was headed towards extinction.

But this month, the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils -- Deep Time (we're still trying to resolve our feelings about that) opened. The crowds have been insane (there's a lot of pent-up dinosaur fever here in the District) and so we weren't sure when we'd get to fully take-in the renovation. But then Allen snagged tickets to Natural History's Sleepover, which meant we were going to get an after-hours tour of the exhibit (with our regular partners in camping, the Telfair-Chas).

It was pretty amazing. Grandpa dropped us off at the museum at 7 pm with our sleeping bags and toothbrushes in tow, and after dropping our bags off at the Ocean Hall (where the actual sleepover was to occur), we briefly headed to the 2nd floor (which was off limit for the actual sleepover) to see the Hope Diamond and other geological items (Nora's always been into rocks, but Owen's love of Minecraft means he now knows a lot about minerals). At 7:30 we headed to orientation where we had snacks, met up with the Telfair-Chas, and got our instructions for the night.

Assigned to the green team, we headed to the Mammal Hall where we solved trivia, identified pollinators, and raced like Pronghorns (Dr. Cha won). We then moved on to evolution where we tried to insure avocados continue to thrive despite the extinction of the giant sloth (by planting radishes -- I'm still a little fuzzy on that one), created a timeline on human tools, practiced hunting and gathering (we would have finished that one quickly if Allen hadn't added a pig which instead of being eaten apparently killed us), built a human spine, did spirographs, and undulated like a lizard. After that, we headed to the Ocean Hall where we learned how many Washington Monuments could be stacked in the ocean (15 in the midnight zone alone), that whales used to have ankles (and that they love a good ankle bracelet), and that we don't really know how big a giant squid can get.

Once we completed the marine life section, we headed to the renovated Hall of Fossils, which was really what started this whole adventure. We ate like a T-Rex, produced origami birds, put together a dinosaur puzzle, learned all about "Number 2" and once we finally had checked off all of our Sleepover stops, got to partake in the battle of Prey vs Predators.

By this time it was 10:30 pm and everyone was a little over hyped and a lot over-tired, so we split into two groups of four: prey (the parents) and predators (the kids). The prey had to hide "eggs" which the predators then had to find and if they found the majority, then the predators won. Both groups were subject to some adaptations which could inhibit their ability -- the predators apparently couldn't deal with water (which turned out to be critical) and the prey got to use a 3-1 ratio in the count. While the predators were feeling pretty good about themselves, the adaptations proved hard to overcome and in the end, the prey one by a single Ikea ball egg (Side note, the organizers didn't know how many eggs there actually were because no one before the parents had ever hidden all the eggs. Additional side note, the kids would have won except Gabriel dropped two eggs which rolled into the water feature and since he couldn't swim, had to forfeit the eggs that would have secured their victory).

The adults might have celebrated their victory a little too much which might have resulted in a few tears and threats to leave, but eventually we corralled everyone by the Megalodon for bed (though Nora kept rolling away, and Elaine eventually moved because while it's never really "night" in a museum, it's really never dark where the Megalodon and the Ocean Terrace Cafe meet -- good thing The Telfair-Chas brought character inspired sleep masks for everyone ). At 7 am the next morning, the lights came on, we decamped, got dressed (except Nora), had a quick breakfast and then headed home (after a brief stop by the gift shop).

The experience seems to have seems to have reignited Owen's love of dinosaurs and I wouldn't mind repeating, provided I have a very long nap first.


(Click here for all the pictures.)
(Click here for a highlights video.)