I went to a bug and reptile museum in a nearly abandoned outlet mall
The Santa Fe Bug and Reptile Museum is located in a place that looks like this:
It's really quite spooky.
Eventually, you get to a single room "museum" packed top to bottom with reptiles, amphibians, and bugs:
I wouldn't call it a museum, myself. It seems more like a small zoo and animal rescue. A number of the snakes and reptiles they have here were surrenders from people who couldn't take care of them anymore, or from people who passed away. They also do outreach events, where they'll show up in a car painted all over with reptiles and let you touch the bugs.
My husband touched the bugs on this trip. WARNING... I am going to depict the bugs. I am going to put photographs in this post.
Warning! It's going to happen!!
I'm not joking!
It's below these rows of text! If you scroll down you'll see gross bugs!
I have no idea how much of these lines are enough to warn you!
I arranged the four bug and spider pictures in order of least to most stereotypically frightening! However, I personally found the third bug the most frightening, not the fourth bug!
The bugs included Blue Death-Feigning Beetles...
And also a hissing cockroach...
And also a vinegaroon, which looks kind of like a cross between a scorpion and a lobster...
And also a tarantula!!
So watch out!
I am going to put the pictures in this blog post!!
Here they are!!!
It cost eight dollars to come here! We spent a whole hour here looking at the reptiles, and I got to hold TWO reptiles, and my husband got to hold two reptiles and four bugs!! Ain't that a deal!!!
I was morbidly fascinated by the long wall of tarantulas along one side of the room. I'm extremely not a fan of spiders, but I don't mind looking at things through glass. It was just a lot of things to look at through glass, that's all.
I'd say the one moment I was really surprised was when I saw a smooth-sided toad lurch around to stare at me through the glass. The toad was enormous. It was as big as my fist, probably bigger, and its eyes were huge, and it really fuckin moved. I gasped when it turned around to look at me.
Anyway, this was a really good experience, very cool, and I was just saying "Wow! Wow!" the entire time. I can't recommend it enough. I think that any good vacation should be filled with tiny hole-in-the-wall type shit, and this is one of those!! We left the place saying, "Wow, that was great. We're geniuses. We're so good at going on vacation!"