NC State Museums

I LOVE the NC state museums not only because they are highly educational, have great exhibits and are kid friendly, but they are FREE!  So with Cameron interest in dinosaurs and Timo's interest in Native American Indians, we took our last day to visit the NC Museum of Sciences and NC Museum of History...which happen to be right next to each other.

Cameron was on a mission...to see dinosaurs.  As soon as we arrived she headed straight for the bones while Timo wanted to stop and see every little display and ask questions.  I love when they have the museum staff out with hands on displays and answering questions.

Once Cameron got her fill of dinos, we checked out a few other exhibits like the giant bug farm!

Then it was Timo's turn to go to his museum.  I really thought the History museum would have lots on Indians considering all the Indian history we learned in school...but the exhibit was relativly small compared to the Revolutionary, Civil and World War exhibits.  (Truth be told, Timo enjoyed the war exhibits way more anyway).  He really wanted to see teepees, canoes and bows, which they had so I guess it was fine.  What was fun was this great hands on looks at how the Indians made fire with sticks...so cool!

Timo was beyond excited when we hit the war areas.  The Revolutionary War was first and we watched a short video about NC role in the war.  Yes, we watched it at least 10 times.  School groups came and went and we were still sitting there, Timo begging "just one more time, pleeeeeese."

We stayed in the "homestead" area a while, learning how to quilt, milk cows, churn butter and cook over an open fire.

We didn't make it the whole way through the history museum, we should have allotted a whole day for just that museum.  We really got stuck in the war areas learning all about weapons, battles, horses, doctors, and cannon.  I was trying to let Timo take his time and guide us, since it was his treat, which meant we watched a reenactment of a cannon firing over and over.  But Cameron was getting hungry, I exhausted all our snacks and it way past time for lunch, so we had to leave before we hit the "First in Flight" section or history in sports.  We'll hit the rest of the museum on our next visit!

I took them to my favorite burger place for lunch, Chargrill!  Such yummy burgers (even though Cameron got a corn dog).  And there's an original Krispy Kreme right downtown too so we just had to stop!  I love visiting North Carolina!!!