Cleveland day travel trip:Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Specimen Photo from cmnh.org

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is a great place to take the kids on a family day trip in Cleveland, Ohio. All ages will enjoy the family travel fun here.

Cleveland families are extremely lucky in that they have a ton of options for short day trips. If all you have is a weekend or a day, you can find a wealth of fun in Cleveland. Family fun can be had in a plethora of local venues, but some are better than the rest. One great option for adults, seniors, and children of all ages is the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Located at One Wade Oval Drive, this museum serves up fun, information, and imagination fodder galore.

Open seven days a week, with various hours, the museum offers amusement at a reasonable cost. Adults (ages 19 and up) are $9, while youths (7-18) are only $7; children, aged three to six, are $6, and toddlers are free. The museum does offer specials which help with the cost; check their website at www.cmnh.org for more information on cost reduction days. The on-site planetarium is $4 per person, unless you are a member of the museum. If you have a special event coming up, you can rent the museum and have one unique happening.

One informative service the museum offer is Natureguide Audio Tours, which is an I-pod loaded with information on the various exhibits and displays found throughout the museum. If you opt out of the I-pod option, you can still get plenty of information at the exhibits. Events and special exhibits are also held at the museum regularly; from now until May third, you can experience Brain Teasers 2, a display designed to help you hone your cognitive skills through hands-on puzzles. If you visit the museum by June fourteenth, you will be able to witness Making Faces: The Art and Science of Forensic Facial Reconstruction, an exhibit which explores different methods of modeling and facial reconstruction.

The museum is also home to many great permanent exhibits, such as perennial favorite Jane the T. rex, which is found in the lobby. Kids will be thrilled by this late Cretaceous creature’s formidable visage. Other dinosaurs “roam” the museum, such as a triceratops and another T.rex. Happy, the haplocanthasaurus delfsi, which is the only specimen complete enough to show, is another favorite. Much of this specimen is actual fossil material, rather than being a cast. Dino lovers will be in seventh heaven as they traverse through the museum’s halls.

Other interesting sights inside the museum include Lucy, the cast of the real Lucy, a specimen of Australopithecus Afarensis. Lucy is over 3.2 million years old and is an early type of human-like creature, known as a hominid. Balto is another famous animal on display; he is remembered for the medicine run in 1925 in Alaska. The Ralph Perkins II Wildlife Center and Woods Garden is a special part of the museum that houses live animals. Species include otters, eagles, bobcats, foxes, and deer. Wild flora is found throughout the lovely wooded area.

The Cleveland Natural History Museum is the perfect spot for a Cleveland Day Trip. Spend half your time indoors, visiting the exhibits, have lunch at The Blue Planet Café, which offers fresh, healthy food, and then head outdoors to visit the animals. This is one day trip the kids will want to repeat again and again.