World Flavor

I am a museum lover. I seek out cool museums of any kind wherever I go (though to be honest, sometimes I give them a pass if I’m being cheap). The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History was always a favorite of mine as a child. As a former DC resident and Smithsonian employee, I should probably not say this, but the Smithsonian one pales in comparison to the American Museum of Natural History, located right next to Central Park in New York City.

I made a trip to this museum in January 2010 and here’s what I saw.

It’s a cool building, and of course there’s a hot dog stand outside.

The architectural details are especially interesting.

A statue of President Theodore Roosevelt stands outside. His father was one of the museum’s founders.

Just inside there’s some massive dinosaur skeletons.

I started with the section of taxidermied animals. Though the exhibits are clearly kind of old at this point, they are well done. There are painted backgrounds and recreated scenes to look like the natural habitat. A lot of times they look so alive – perhaps that’s what inspired Night at the Museum.

I’m sure many people find these sorts of displays rather morbid, but I think they’re fascinating, and historically interesting as well.

Of course, the museum is not all displays of dead animals; there are collections of cultural objects as well. The explanation plaques are well done here, and you can learn a lot through viewing these objects.

The Hayden Planetarium in the museum has a space show, which is right now Whoopi Goldberg narrated (the National Air and Space Museum in DC has this one too). This didn’t fit in with my budget, unfortunately.

Next I visited the dinosaur exhibit. This one was really interesting because there have actually been a lot of new discoveries regarding dinosaurs since I was a kid, and I got to learn all about what the new research says (for instance, they had to change the position of this T-rex once they learned more about how it moved).

The reptiles and amphibians section goes into great detail about the life cycle of those animals.

There was a small special exhibit on spider silk while I was there. This tapestry was woven from spider silk!

I next went through the gems and minerals section. I find it hard to really get interested in these sorts of sections even if the stuff in them looks pretty cool. [Here's one place the DC one is better - they've got the Hope diamond.]

There’s one room in the museum with giant versions of things, like a mosquito and this Rafflesia (also known as the corpse flower). Kind of neat.

The final section that I went through was the oceans exhibit. It was especially dimly lit so none of my pictures really turned out. Perhaps I should do another post comparing the two Natural History museums since each has its pros and cons.

Overall, I really like the American Museum of Natural History. I spent hours there and didn’t give every exhibit the attention it deserved. I would definitely recommend a visit.

Details:

• Location: 79th Street and Central Park West. Take the B or C train to the 81st Street Station or take the 1 train to Broadway and West 79th and walk two blocks east. See the website for more directions (bus, etc).
• Hours: 10 AM – 5:45 PM daily. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• Admission: This is kind of interesting. The ‘ticket price’ is actually a suggested donation. It’s $19 for adults and $14.50 for students with ID. But the thing is, you can pay less. You would have to stand in line and tell the person at the counter what you wanted to pay. So they make you feel like you have to pay the full price, but honestly, you don’t have to. I payed the full student price because even though it’s kind of expensive, I like supporting museums.
• Other Info: For special exhibit and IMAX information, visit the website. Depending on your pace in museums, you should give it 2-4 hours, at least. The coat check is $2 and can save your arms a lot of strain.

Lucifer Falls, the biggest waterfall at Robert H. Treman State Park near Ithaca, New York. Decidedly a beautiful park that’s worth the $8 parking fee!

My main purpose of driving up to New York two weeks ago was to attend Farm Sanctuary‘s intern retreat with my friend Amy. Sure, I’ve never been an intern at Farm Sanctuary (it was my first time there) but they allowed each intern to bring a guest for $40, which considering they provided four meals and lots of snacks, was not a bad price.

Farm Sanctuary is an organization whose mission is to protect farm animals from various kinds of cruelty. They rescue farm animals from factory farms and small operations alike and keep them at their two sanctuary locations, one in Orland, California, and the main, original one in Watkins Glen, New York. They use tours of those farms to educate the public about the plight of farm animals, especially in factory farming conditions. They are also involved in political advocacy; their main campaign at the moment is one to ban battery cages for chickens, gestation crates for pigs, and veal crates.

At the intern retreat I was able to hear a lot about Farm Sanctuary’s mission and campaigns. I was also able to learn about some of their more recent animal rescues. There was a ‘panel’ with former interns talking about their current jobs in the animal rights world, and a session on how to be an effective activist. Probably most of the people at the retreat were vegan, and it was interesting to hear people’s perspectives on that lifestyle and on animal rights. The founder of Farm Sanctuary, Gene Baur, was there and spoke. I also had lunch with him on the last day. I thought that his views were very realistic and I agreed with him a lot. I’m hesitant to get political here, but I will say that I do agree that conditions should be better for factory-farmed animals (if nothing else, as a human health issue).

The best part of the weekend, by far, was the two farm tours I got to take. On the first day we got to hang out with ducks and geese, pigs, roosters, turkeys, goats, and sheep.

On the second day, we saw the cows and again visited the goats and sheep. Amy and I left the tour at this point to use the restroom, and got to grab some leftovers for lunch (and eat with Gene Baur) as an added bonus.

Speaking of food, the food was pretty good. It was all vegan. For breakfast there were bagels (with PB, margarine, and vegan cream cheese), scones, fruit pastries, and fruit. Lunch was three different kinds of wraps (I had one that was pumpkin and sunflower seed pâté with avocado purée and salad – it was a bit too mushy for my tastes), cole slaw, potato salad, and salad with tarragon dressing (yum). Dinner was a cookout with three types of vegan hot dogs and sausages, watermelon, and some other stuff I forgot. They also set out snacks before dinner of pretzels and fruit and wafer cookies. I ate a lot.

I met a lot of interesting people at the retreat. Some were very radical and a bit angry in their support of animal rights. I felt pretty self-conscious about my leather purse. However, I still definitely had a good time.

I think that Farm Sanctuary is worth a visit if you’re in the area. They give tours for $5 and you will probably learn something as well as get to cuddle with some adorable and sweet animals.

For anyone reading this interested in learning more about various issues surrounding animal production, I would strongly recommend Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals.

Last weekend I drove up to Watkins Glen, NY with my friend Amy for a Farm Sanctuary retreat (more on that later). I was fortunate enough to have some extra time available to check out some of the nearby parks. The weather was not particularly great – raining off and on the whole time, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying some waterfalls.

The Finger Lakes are a series of long, thin, North-South-running lakes in west-central New York. They were named as such since they reminded mapmakers of fingers (and it makes sense). Watkins Glen is at the southern tip of Seneca Lake, the largest of the Finger Lakes. In addition to the lakes (pretty in their own right), there are a number of gorges in the area. Some of these are rather dramatic and have resulted in waterfalls, which I’m pretty sure everyone loves (or can at least appreciate).

I only got to go to two of the areas’ waterfalls due to time constraints, but they were totally magical so that’s okay.

First we went to Watkins Glen State Park. One of the entrances is right on the main street of Watkins Glen, and you can see the gorge from the parking lot.

It was getting dark when we made it to the park, so my pictures are not as good as I’d like. We also couldn’t venture too far along the trail, but we were able to get to the coolest part of the trail, which is where it goes behind a waterfall.

This is not really something I’ve come across before, and is definitely the main factor behind me calling this place ‘magical’. If you’re nearby, at least stop through and go behind the waterfall. You won’t regret it.

NOTE: The park charges an $8 parking fee. You can easily avoid that by parking in town (lots of free parking) and walking over to the park.

On the next day, we headed up to Ithaca (approximately a 40 minute drive from Watkins Glen). Along the way we stopped at Robert H. Treman State Park. We didn’t know much about it, just that it had a gorge with waterfalls.

The trail follows Enfield Creek as it goes through the gorge it has created, with some spectacular results.

The biggest waterfall is called Lucifer Falls, and it is incredible. It’s around 115 feet (35 m) high and it is simply magnificent. Some people offered to take our picture and revealed that they’d just gotten engaged; it would be a lovely place for it. We didn’t go far past Lucifer Falls; the hike is 4.5 miles (7.2 km) round trip and is fairly steep, and we weren’t up to quite that much that day.

Again, there was a parking fee ($7) but there is no easy way to get around it here – Robert H. Treman State Park is 5 miles (8 km) south of Ithaca and is really not near anywhere else to park. However, I would still highly encourage a visit. You are definitely getting at least $7 worth of beauty.

That’s all I got to see, but there are just a ton of other waterfalls nearby. There are a couple more in and near Watkins Glen, a bunch in nearby Montour Falls, and a large amount in and around Ithaca. I found a great “waterfalls of New York” map here, and I would encourage you to use that site to plan your waterfall spotting trip – loads of great information including opening times, parking fees, and hiking information.