Smithsonian Museum of Natural History Wed, Sep 20, 2017

While in DC recently, I visited the Smithsonian museums for the first time. My favorite was the Natural History Museum (You may remember this one from the Ben Stiller movie “Night at the Museum,” which was shot both at this location and the New York Natural History Museum)

Anyways, my absolute favorite exhibit* was the gem and precious minerals section. Now, part of this was 8-yr old me that used to collect rocks (mostly a box full of quartz) that came out and started running from window to window excitedly to examine every rock and gem formation in detail. But adult-Courtney had a different take on it. I was SO amazed that these formations occurred naturally. Some of them honestly looked like carefully crafted art pieces. From the colors and the shapes to the combination of both, I was left dumbfounded that someone had just found these somewhere at one point - that they hadn’t been created in a lab under crazy conditions or manipulated or dyed.

While it left me feeling a little feeble about any attempt I’d ever made to be creative, it did also inspire me to look no further than outside when I do need creative inspiration. 

** When I say favorite I mean a tie with the replica model of the USS Enterprise used for filming the 1960s Star Trek series at the Air and Space Museum