The Blog Post of Epic Proportions, Part II: Dino Day and Autumn Festivities

Part II. Last weekend's awesome adventures. I had so much fun I didn't even know what to do with myself.  Ridiculous.

Thursday we slept, did laundry, and cleaned the house!! SO exciting, right? But really, on Thursday night we ate at Madison Square Eats. If you read my last post, you know we went for dessert with my family, but this time we went hungry. I got franks from asiadog: the ito (Japanese curry + homemade kimchi apples) and the sidney (Thai style relish with mango + cucumber + red onion +cilantro + crushed peanuts + fish sauce). Austin had a burger from Graffiti/Metaphor that was pretty impressive. We enjoyed eating dinner under the lights and then went for a dessert milk shake at the Shake Shack across the street in the park. Peanut butter...mmmm.

So busy! Madison Square likes to Eat.

My asiadogs.

Lights, hustle and bustle! This place was hopping.

Delicious food, delicious times.

Friday we went went here...dun, dun, DUNNN!

(jessicahish.com)
Pardon my French...but it's just oh. so. true.
Honestly, I hope this doesn't offend anyone, it just made me laugh :)

We woke up and made pumpkin pancakes, which of course just started out the day right. Pancakes are always Austin's thing...he always makes them when we have people stay over. They're kind of infamous. But these pancakes, these were on a whole 'nother level. If you know what I mean.

Pumpkin freaking pancakes. Yes.

This museum, let me tell you. It is out of this world. First of all, the hype builds with the coolest subway stop in the entire world. It makes me smile every time I pass it. This time, we got to stop. Dinausaur fossils, starry skys, insects, the sunrise, all built into the subway tile.

(via ideonexus.com)
Awesome, no?

We arrived at the museum with high expectations, and this is how we were greeted.

Entrance to awesomeness.

Well hey there, Mr Dinosaur.

Oh, and hi, hello. You are so tall you barely fit in my pictures.

We started out in the Hall of African Mammals and were greeted by a herd a elephants.

The Circle of Life was playing in the background...ok not really, but is this not freaking awesome??

Big fellas.

We also saw the big 5 and giraffes, zebras, and gazelle galore. Not quite as cool as Kenya, but the next best thing here statewide. I'm pretty sure Africa takes the cake when it comes to awesome animals. They are just too cool for school.

Giraffes!

Zebras, zebras, zebras.

Cape buffalo

Hippo at the watering hole. Fun fact from Kenya: did you know that hippos are the most dangerous of African animals to humans?  They are super territorial and a lot of Kenyans are attacked when they go to get water. I cared for a little girl who was bitten by one and had her arm completely crushed- so scary!

There's always tons of gazelle...

Ok, so every time I see this picture, this song we sang in Sunday School back in the day comes in my head...Who's the King of the Jungle? Hoo-hoo *pounds chest* Random, I know.

Mufasa.

Then, we went to the Planetarium where Whoopi (Goldberg, that is) taught us about the creation of stars (not in real life, but she narrated the i-max style movie). Super interesting.

To infinity, and beyond! (Ok, are these comments nerdy enough for you yet?)

The North American Mammals seemed a little lame after the African Mammals, but they were still pretty cool. The epic flying squirrels were my favorite.

Elk

Holy antlers, Batman.

dun, dun, DUNNNN!

Then we saw LOTS of Indians (did I mention lots of Indians?), people groups, giant redwood stumps, and the Hall of Creatures (!!!) This was a bit too awesome to take. Trust me, you'll see.

Totem. LOTS of Indians.

Learning to read stumps.

So, so old.

And...the Hall of Creatures!!!! fdkla;reuiak!

Wall of butterflies.

By the time we got to the Hall of Oceans, my phone was dead and Austin's was practically there. Can you tell we were a bit picture happy? So we will save that for a future blog post. But let me just tell you, it was AWESOME. As in, replica of a freaking whale suspended from the ceiling awesome. Are you seeing a trend here. Austin wanted to save his camera for the 4th floor, which houses these guys....

Dinosaurs! The highlight of the day. Duh.

Triceritops, right? I think I need to brush up on my dinos.

But this one I know...T-rex!! How about those teeth? :D

We shut the museum down and didn't even feel like we saw half of it. We were so enthralled that we bit the bullet and bought season passes. It pretty much pays for itself if we go back at least 3 times...which I'm pretty sure will not be a problem. We got our membership cards in the mail yesterday. So legit.

After the museum, we walked around the lovely Upper West Side, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite neighborhoods. Then, going with our dino theme we took the train up to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que for some amazing wings, ribs, bbq chicken, and pulled pork.

Dinosaur BBQ

Then we fell asleep watching Jurassic Park. Perfect way to end our Dino Date.

Soooo...I am going to dub this Chapter 1 of Part II. See what I mean when I said epic? I think you have enough to feast your eyes on for tonight, will finish my updates tomorrow! :) Good night, dear void.