Suddenly my blog is becoming a travelog of cool museums. Last week I was in Pittsburgh and spent an afternoon at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History – recommended because of their great dinosaur exhibit. It’s worth the trip there just for that, but I found myself pulled into the dioramas on North American mammals.

Wapiti Diorama

I’m not sure what attracts me to them – whether it’s the dioramas themselves or the flashbacks to being a kid on a school field trip again. Either way, there is something fascinating about being in a dark, quiet museum environment looking at a 3D piece of nature frozen in time outside (and inside) a big picture window. It’s like getting to be an alien visiting your own planet.

Bighorn Sheep Diorama

Stuffed animals with beautifully painted backgrounds – realistic, but not overly so. The paintings work much better than giant photographs ever could.

Dinosaur Bones

The dinosaurs, on the other hand, have their own twist on reality. Clearly, without flesh there is no believing that you’re observing a snapshot of their world. But the skeletons are in dramatic poses – you understand much more about them than just their size by seeing them hunting, fighting, swimming or grazing. I worried about this guy – already dead for millions of years yet still having to evade the toothy beast bearing down on his neck.