26th - Giants

Morning was normal and today’s plan was to go to the History museum and see how long we would end up spending there and from there find out further action for the day depending on time. We arrived at 1030 and didn’t leave until they closed at 1745.

The place was huge; they have a dome cinema where we saw a movie about the universe and an IMAX cinema where we saw one about the US national parks. But the – literally – big thing was the many dinosaur skeletons they have. My favorite was the T-rex but it seemed like they had a bit of everything. The issue was that this was without a doubt the most popular thing with the kids which meant chaos and a lot of noise made it at times almost unbearable. We walked through a small part and almost rushed through the rest 4/5 of the dinosaur exhibition because we realized we had already spent more than an hour, getting hungry and soon were supposed to catch our second movie.

Yutyrannus huali.

The T-Rex!

Stegosaurus.

Triceratops.

Mastodon.

Plesiosaur.

Blue whale hanging in the aquatic area.

The entrance hall with a baurosaurus protecting its young from an attacking allosaurus.

After the movie we went our separate ways the last 1½ hours before closing. I briefly went through the aquatic animals and rushed primates, woodland- and prairie Indians and Pacific peoples before leaving. That was skipping African mammals, diseases, various peoples (which was almost two full floors compared to the single floor with dinosaurs) and various other smaller exhibitions. Plenty of material for a 2-3 days visit if you don’t want to rush anything.

When leaving we walked back to the hotel and had dinner on the way. From there we split again; due to clear weather I returned to Brooklyn to do the bridge walk again like a couple of days ago hoping to get clear shots and doing the Staten Island ferry to get some skyline night shots. Surprise; ferries and long shutter times do not mix well.

Brooklyn Bridge with Manhattan in the background.

Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge.

Manhattan from the ferry.

New Jersey, Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Returning to Manhattan.

Coming back I was informed that it had not been able to do The Rock as all tickets for the evening had been sold out, so she ended up getting a ticket for the following morning at 1010. If the weather is good I might join her – this will probably be the only time I get to do a high view of the city in daylight.