Las Vegas: National Atomic Testing Museum

Tucked into an innocuous lot off of East Flamingo road, it'd be easy to drive right past the National Atomic Testing Museum and never notice the presence of this scientifically abundant space. I can honestly say that we certainly did exactly that for quite a long time, before finally realizing what we were missing out on and making a point to check it out. As luck would have it, we found time to make the trip not long after our weekend out by Lake Mead, so after a long morning hauling through the desert, we found ourselves basking in the air-conditioning and soaking in the vast supply of information available. Despite eluding our awareness for some time, the Atomic Testing Museum is a pretty legit experience, allowing visitors a glimpse into history to the Las Vegas area that not many people know about, but continues to have an impact on our country to this day. The ramifications and reality of nuclear fallout are real, guys, and more widespread than their scientists predicted back in the heyday of atomic testing, impacting the states of Nevada, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico the most but extending as far out as even New York, though the proliferation of super-fund sites is a whole different problem in and of itself. You can learn about this sort of stuff at the museum, along with checking out some of the pop-culture memorabilia that has sprung up around it, in some way or another. We spent a couple hours wandering around, reading the various plaques and signs and trying to absorb as much as we could.

There are some thematic areas that might be a little spooky for small children, and the words to pictures ratio might not be favorable to young kids, either. For the literate, the curious, and the passing through, it's absolutely worth popping in to explore the Atomic Testing Museum if you find yourself in their neck of the woods. During the time of our visit, there was a woman have a very loud, very dramatic and very public sort of fit, screaming at her phone, a guy across the street, and otherwise making a scene, which was a little appetizer of free entertainment before even stepping foot inside the building. The museum is a bit more together, thankfully, and after obtaining your ticket from their friendly staff, you'll be soaking in the knowledge! You might be able to find a discounted ticket on Groupon, as we did, but they also partner with the Mob Museum to offer discounts for visiting both museums during your time in Vegas, or there might even be separate discounts still available for locals! It doesn't hurt to do a little research before your visit, after all.  

Vegas: Math Alive! Exhbit at the Springs Preserve May 2018

The Springs preserve plays host to two large museums on it's grounds: The Nevada State Museum and the Origen Museum. This exhibit was in the Origen Museum, same one we saw the Space exhibit on my birthday in. This time around, the exhibit was focused on Mathematics- not surprising, perhaps, given the name of the event. We caught it right at the tail end of it's run, so it will no longer be available to check out by the time this post is live, I'm afraid. I hope that by preserving it's awesomeness and sharing it with you here now you'll feel inspired to look into and check out future events at the Springs Preserve! There's always something new going on and we've had a lot of fun checking it out over the time we've had our memberships. It's always a family friendly affair, too, so for those of you with young ones it's a great option for a day out with them! Personally, I've always had something of an on-again-off-again love affair with math. I felt it came easily when I was attending a math and science magnet school as a child, and paid far less attention than I should have during lessons. Everything up through geometry made sense, and geometry came easily as my spacial-awareness from years of drawing was already pretty high. It was when we started to dabble in algebra, mixing the letters with numbers, that things started to go awry for me. I think that with the right teachers it would have been no problem, as I had a teacher later in life who explained it all in a manner that clarified things immensely, but for most of my middle and high school career I found myself growing resentful and frustrated by the teachers I had, who made it seem so effortlessly easy and insulted my efforts to ask questions after class...that's right, I legitamately had a teacher make fun of me when I came to her room after class to ask her for additional guidance. She had always been a bit of a nightmare teacher, with a reputation around campus for being a monster, but to mock a student's honest efforts at trying to learn and understand the material? Wow. In the end I needed to seek out outside tutoring and it helped, but it took time to get over the psychological block that I was innately bad at math after her abuses and taunts over the school year.  You may have to plan your visit for earlier in the day, however, if you're planning on visiting the butterfly exhbit, their zoo (say hi to Mojave Max their tortoise!), the Sustainability gallery , Boomtown and Waterworks, or other areas of the Preserve like the botanical gardens...

 

More photos below!

Vegas: Nevada State Museum at the Springs Preserve

On this particular visit to the Springs Preserve we found our way to the Nevada State Museum! We were pretty excited to find out that it was included in our admission with our annual passes, which we both highly recommend getting if you're in the Vegas area for any substantial amount of time. There's just so much to see and do at the preserve, especially if you're a local that enjoys gardens, museums and the out doors but wants to stray away from the crowds at the Bellagio's conservatory or other top tourist destinations. We were both quite happy with our time in the museum and found it an excellent use of an afternoon together. There's a lot of exhibits and information to absorb! Personally, I'd say my favorite displays have to be the skeletons as it's so fascinating to see the prehistoric remains of beasts that roamed the lands eons ago. On the topic of dinosaurs there's a really cool painting inside the museum that was painted by super talented local artists! Photos will be included below.

It might seem silly that we're so enthusiastic about museums and gardens and the like since Vegas is a city that thrives on it's nightlife and high class dining, shopping, and entertaining...but both Antho and I are locals who grew up in the city and we both just generally prefer to stay off the main boulevard when we go out to play. There's a lot of fun and exciting things to see and do on the Strip, that's for sure, but with traffic, parking, the crowds and everything else it can be too much sometimes. We have fun when we play tourist but it's not something we do every day... at the preserve, however, we feel at peace. Everyone we've interacted with has been pleasant and friendly for the most part, the crowds typically thin and the gardens beautiful. We've gotten a lot of use out of our annual passes and expect to get several more trips in before they expire. It's been especially fun to see how the grounds change through the seasons. There's always something new coming in to bloom or going out for the season. 

As always, more photos after the cut!