American Museum of Natural History

We spent Sunday exploring the American Museum of Natural History. (http://www.amnh.org/)
We received a family membership to the museum from my sister...what a great Christmas gift! We took the M86 crosstown bus, which proved fast and convenient for our Sunday morning journey. The museum was crowded, but still very manageable. The facility is enormous - it will take us a few visits to get familiar with the exhibit spaces, elevator locations, etc.

One highlight included The Silk Road, an exhibit that takes you along the famous trade route from AD 600 to 1200. The journey travels from ancient cities in Asia to the Middle East, starting in Xi'an, then Turfan, Samarkard and ending in Baghdad. The exhibit is hands-on, from watching live silk worms spin cocoons in Xi'an to exploring the night market and smelling the spices in Turfan.

We learned that along the journey camels carried a majority of the items for trade. The life-size camels along the exhibit were fun to look at and see how they would have been packed for the journey.