Night at the Museum | Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History

Temperatures are dropping and winter has made it's way across the Mid-Atlantic this week!

We have seen our first snow flurries and snow is becoming a regular part of the forecast across Pennsylvania, so we began searching for an exploration that would take us out of the cold weather. We found ourselves at a night at the museum: The Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History.

The Carnegie Museums are distinctive but located together in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood, which allowed us to spend an evening viewing incredible collections at both museums!

The Carnegie Museum of Art was founded in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie and features over 35,000 works of art.

The museum holds contemporary and fine art, but also has a permanent collection of traditional art from both the United States and Europe, which was beautiful to view.

We had a great time going through the exhibitions – which ranged from 17th century to present works of art – and could have spent an entire weekend appreciating them.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History was founded a year after the Museum of Art, in 1896, by Andrew Carnegie, who also had an interest in gems, fossils and minerals.

The museum includes the world's first specimen of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, as well as the world's largest collection of Jurassic dinosaurs.

We spent most of our time there looking through the impressive collection of dinos and quoting Jurassic Park ("Life finds a way."), but the museum also features herpetology, invertebrate zoology, mammals, minerals and mollusks exhibits.

It seems like it is going to be a cold winter for us in the Mid-Atlantic, but thankfully, there are other Carnegie Museums, The Carnegie Science Center and The Andy Warhol Museum (Andy Warhol was born and raised in Pittsburgh), that we can explore in comfort, out of the chilly weather.

Check back soon for a blog about our first winter in Pennsylvania!