While visiting the Historic Triangle of Virginia, we had the opportunity to visit many museums in addition to historic sites. One such museum was the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News.
This was another opportunity brought to us by the local homeschool community, the other being our tour of the Berkeley Plantation. Even better, we got in free thanks to The Boy’s EAA membership and ASTC reciprocal benefits!
The Virginia Living Museum was an interesting amalgamation of a zoo and a museum. Inside, the museum had two major “wings” dedicated to different biomes found in Virginia. Outside was a boardwalk path that meandered among live animal exhibits.
The museum wasn’t just about current life in Virginia but also discussed the ancient past. Part of the boardwalk, and the one most anticipated by both The Boy and The Girl, had dinosaurs!
The Virginia Living Museum has a large area along its boardwalk dedicated to dinosaurs. Complete with statues, “dig pits” and informational plaques. At the time of our visit, the Virginia Living Museum was hosting another indoor exhibit that had more animatronic statues and information.
Regrettably, the statues were not all to scale. The animatronic statues that were on loan were, however, and gave us a real feel for how massive these animals were. Unfortunately, the dinosaurs in their permanent exhibit, especially the sauropods, were all smaller.
The dinosaurs were definitely the high point. The rest of the museum was just okay. Being a mix of museum and zoo it didn’t particularly shine as either. If you find yourself touring Virginia and are looking for something other than history, maybe try one of the other museums of Virginia.