Arizona Museum of Natural History

Today's AZ Adventure Passport took us to the Arizona Museum of Natural History. Although, probably not the most thrilling on the list, we chose this stop next because it was the cheapest (and air conditioned)! And though my expectations weren't high, I was impressed by the interactivity of the museum for little ones.

It had a wide variety of exhibits including an entire section on Mars. Here are the boys after completing a puzzle of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in our solar system.

Outside in the courtyard, the boys spent plenty of time panning for gold. Surprisingly Noah was the one who walked away from this SOAKING WET! The main focus of the museum was a huge dinosaur exhibit spanning three floors with mechanical dinosaurs, and a real thunderstorm with flood, that occurred about every 15 minutes. We only watched it 6 times!

Upstairs the boys worked more puzzles, this time of an alligator and a crocodile. Can you tell the difference?

One thing I really appreciated about this museum was the Discovery Room. Formerly called the Exploration Station, it was a huge classroom in the basement where little ones could play and learn. They had tangrams, books, fossil impressions, coloring, activity sheets, and puzzles galore. Right up our alley!

My favorite part of the museum was a photo exhibit put together by Arizona Highways Magazine. The photos were truly spectacular and I wish I had them all to decorate my new house! I will definitely be spending some time on their website looking for ideas for road trips.
Overall, the museum was a good experience. At just under 4 hours, we maxed ourselves out and Caleb had a complete melt down as we were leaving. Something about his snack, a PopTart, breaking in half...you know, important stuff! However, he succeeded again with no accidents the entire trip.