Persephone
Well-Known Member
"Pilgrimage" has the wrong connotation, but "Passage" was worse. Afraid this is what I had to go with.
Anyway, hi, I'm Persephone and I'm on an ill-advised quest to visit every* AZA accredited zoo.
*Except the one in Dubai because I'm illegal there.
That quest has taken me to Pennsylvania this weekend and I'll be back in the future. I thought I would group all of these trips into a single thread so I could do a ranking at the end. Saturday evening to yesterday morning I took the train into Pittsburgh for the National Aviary. I decided to also hit up the Pittsburgh Zoo while I was there since it's almost certainly getting accredited again in a few months and I would rather not have to repeat the trip. So, uh, let's start by reviewing Pittsburgh as a city!
I hate it. I hate it so much. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty. Downtown is in a river valley with some gorgeous forested hills on both sides. The PPG building is really cool looking. But, uh. They really hate homeless people here. They hate homeless people so much that it's pretty much impossible to be a traveler on foot. Let me explain.
I got off my train at 5:00 in the morning. The National Aviary didn't open until 10:00 a.m. None of the tourist things open until 10:00 a.m. So I had five hours to kill. I was exhausted since I don't sleep well on trains and wanted to nap in the station. Unfortunately, they have designed their seating so that it is impossible to lie down. They also don't have wifi in the station. There also wasn't wifi on the train. Since I couldn't nap and couldn't do work, I decided to wander the city. Except, again, nothing was open. All of the things open for breakfast downtown were takeout only so I couldn't even sit down, grab a bagel and some coffee, and access the internet. Also it was raining. The rain made everything 100x worse. I checked out the park at the point, which was very pretty. And also has no publicly accessible bathrooms. None of the parks do. The best I ever saw in the five hour span was a portable toilet I could smell from five feet away. I also never saw a bench without hostile architecture. Or public wifi. Not even the subway stations had bathrooms, although I did hide out under one for an hour or so because it was covered and the rain had picked up. I eventually just gave up and walked through the rain to the National Aviary, which is in a large park with no toilets. By the time I could finally get in my socks were soaked through, I hadn't been able to pee in hours, and I was exhausted and so, so very done with everything. Congrats Pittsburgh, your crusade to make life even worse for your most vulnerable citizens has made it pretty much impossible to be a tourist in your city. Hope you're happy.
Anyway. Onto the aviary. @TinoPup did a fantastic species list recently so I won't.
National Aviary
It was fine? I liked almost every exhibit. They even had one that I thought was great. But the whole time I kept thinking that this was more like Cincinnati's Wings of the World or whatever the Smithsonian is calling their bird house now than a standalone attraction. And then there was the price, which is the first chance a zoo has to upset or please me. $18 for an adult. Not terrible. But most of the crowd pleasing species are locked behind two shows that are $5 each. And lorikeet feeding is $3. I am obsessed with lorikeets so I paid for that and the indoor show. Didn't pay for Skydeck because it was raining and I was already done with rain. Still. $28 to see all of your animals at an attraction that I frankly don't think is the best aviary I've ever seen, and might not even be the second best, is an outrage. Comparing admission to the Smithsonian is maybe disingenuous, so let's go with Cincinnati. It would be $25 for an adult ticket for today, July 3, 2023. That's less money for a very good zoo than for an attraction that's maybe better than their bird house.
With that said, I was surprised how easy it was to spend a lot of time there. And how much I did like some of the rooms. The aviary starts with a tropical rainforest walkthrough that I'd expected to be the highlight of the aviary because, again, tropical rainforest walkthrough. Most zoos blow their birdhouse budget there. Species list was nice. Great argus, hyacinth macaw, and victoria crowned pigeon were the headlining birds. The macaws were being fairly lively, and argus was always in a place where he was well displayed, and the crowned pigeons were doing their usual 'I fear neither bird nor man nor god' routine. One was roosting on a nest the entire visit. I did notice that younger visitors were often harassing the birds when they got onto the path and staff usually were more concerned with pointing out the sloth or jotting down notes on their animal's behavior than they were with keeping kids from crowding out their less nimble birds. It was one of a few times I was somewhat disappointed in the public facing staff.
Canary's Call has a theme that birds are still the canary in the coal mine for the imminent ecological collapse. Most of the exhibits here are fine for the theme. Burrowing owls, some rarer Amazon species, Guam kingfishers. The two largest exhibits - a mixed species tropical aviary and a rainbow lorikeet feeding area - really aren't. The canaries themselves are in (relatively large) wrought iron cages. Really wish they replaced one of the larger exhibits with a Canary Islands focused one. Most of the rainforest birds could go into the walkthrough, I imagine the canaries could just take the lory's place as a feeding encounter. They would probably accept the stick feeding I've seen zoos use for budgies. Probably. I don't actually know much about bird husbandry.
Also capuchinbirds are great? They look like smaller, flamboyant vultures. My favorite bird from the trip.
Lorikeet feeding was kind of a bust for $3. The staff kept hurrying birds off of me once they'd stopped eating, wouldn't let them explore my shoulders / head even after I said I was experienced with the birds, knew the risks of getting shat upon or having them screech in my ear, was totally fine. That might be a bird flu thing idk. They wouldn't really explain why. I have a mane of very curly hair and the birds usually love exploring it for nesting material. The lories had a concrete floor, no water features, no live plants, but they did have a lot of branches to explore and a bunch of crude toys so I thought it wasn't a terrible exhibit for them. Also for $3 they don't give you much food. Done in maybe one very hungry bird or, in my case, two birds that aren't too hungry.
I went into the indoor show, Habitat Heroes, not expecting very much. Tino had suggested it was geared towards kids (it was) and I was thinking it would be like Kansas City's bird show that was over in maybe ten minutes after some quick tricks and free flight segments with the usual bird show cast. I really liked the show? Yes, the superhero theming they have going on around the aviary was kind of cheesy. But the bird selection and tasks were pretty great. Macaw, amazon, harris hawks, eagle owl, three-banded armadillo, grey crowned crane, bald eagle. The bald eagle was a no-show because he apparently didn't want to do it. Which is great! Zoos usually have a line thrown in about how ambassadors have the opportunity to decline but it was wonderful seeing a zoo respect the decision of the show's star like that. The eagle owl also didn't really want to leave the stage so they just kind of let him chill for a few minutes while talking about positive reinforcement. I don't know why the armadillo was there and I kind of wish they'd just put him into the rainforest aviary instead. There wasn't even an explanation given for their presence in the show script. Weird choice for a facility that very clearly shies away from mammals. (Three in the whole aviary.) At the end they had an amazon that took paper money and put it into the donation box. If you gave it a five you could get a button or a reusable straw. I didn't want to give the aviary any more money but I would happily give that bird a five for a straw. Good gimmick. Tbh I would've happily paid the full admission price at the start if a bird took my money. Show ran a half hour.
The penguin area was fine. Outdoor exhibit with indoor and outdoor viewing sections. Not too big, not horribly small. I wish they expanded it to nearly the entire courtyard since there's indoor viewing, anyway. I feel like if you're going to call yourself the National Aviary you need either a stellar collection or stellar exhibits, and they fell shy on both counts in my eyes.
The wetland aviary is the clear star of the complex. A pretty big glass box with free flight capabilities for large, colorful birds. The planting goes wide rather than tall, allowing for a pretty open sky. I saw a bunch of roseate spoonbills in free flight. The headliners either couldn't fly or didn't care to during my visit. Headlining species were the American flamingo, brown pelican, and blue-billed curassow. I'm not certain I've seen the curassow before and they are fascinating birds. They both seemed to be more interested in the visitor section of the exhibit than the bird section. The male was trying to subtly get closer to the female, who was busy perching in a fake tree and looking in the opposite direction. As with the pigeons and argus staff let kids get a little too close to the curassow for my (or the birds) comfort. A few kids almost touched the female before their parents stopped them. The pelican kept trying to get airborne but failed. Wing feathers didn't seem clipped. Maybe they'd gone for a swim a bit too recently? Hard to tell. Also not that many flamingoes for a flamboyance. Maybe seven. Not terrible, but less than I'm used to seeing at once.
The grassland exhibit is kind of just an enclosed hallway with some mulch and plants. Nothing bigger than a bobwhite or mid-sized dove. It was my second favorite exhibit there. It was cool seeing an emphasis on smaller birds, there weren't many people making noise but a lot of birdsong, and I adored the turquoise tanagers. If I had to spend al day in one of the three walkthroughs it would have been that one.
Well, probably not all day. There weren't any benches. The only benches in the tropical rainforest weren't at good viewing points. I know this was probably way down the list of considerations given the aviary's small footprint but after having spent the entire morning on my feet I just wanted somewhere to sit down and look at birds. The multispecies exhibits all share a problem of not having dedicated species-specific signage. The best you're going to get is the bird's name and appearance as well as a sign or two dedicated to the more charismatic residents.
The rest of the aviary was composed of habitats holding one or two species. None were particularly impressive, none were terribly disappointing. I liked the toco toucans. They had a feeder that required them to hang down from their branch and use their full beak length to access food. That was cool. My uber driver after the aviary told me that when she visited the toucans were struggling to figure out how to eat grapes with their beak. So apparently the toucans get good enrichment.
The condors have a nice enough aviary. So do all the outdoor birds of prey. And the cranes, which are lumped in with the king vultures. The kookaburras had signage asking guests if they'd heard the birds laughed with no signs saying not to laugh to the birds and no staff to monitor it. I'm sorry for those birds. The condors were in the exact same positions at 9:30 when I arrived a the park and 1:55 when I left. But then they decided to move while I was watching them from the window of an uber. Never change, birds.
Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History
I still had time to kill before I could check into my hotel. I'd heard people here talk highly about the natural history museum in passing so I figured, eh, why not? I mostly focused on the natural history side, but admission covers both. $25 for two good museums isn't bad. I also could pay / had to pay fifty cents for a locker to store my backpack in. Backpacks aren't allowed in the galleries and I didn't want to carry it around any longer than I had to.
The only parts of the art museum I went to were the sculpture and architecture halls. I am a casual fan of cool architecture from around the world and was... a little disappointed? Their entire collection was casts, which I'm entirely cool with as that lets museums display things without moving the original. No, I was disappointed the entire collection was Greco-Roman, Medieval Christian, and Renaissance. The cast and model display concept means you can ethically source your exhibits from anywhere and it's not a terrible loss to replace things or move them to storage. They could've compared sculptures and buildings from across civilizations rather than just across time. The exhibit was fine, but the signage was meh and I kept feeling like it could've been astounding. Like, an entire museum of just models and casts dedicated to humanity's urge to build things.
Anyway. Uh. Natural history? First time I've seen a gift shop entrance instead of an exit. I kind of skipped over or skimmed half of the museum because I was tired and I knew I couldn't get through the whole thing in three hours. I didn't do a species list because I don't care much for taxidermy and the entire living collection is locked behind a 1:30 show. I thought they'd at least have live insects in their insect wing, but, nope. Only taxidermy and some admittedly cool displays of what termite and ant nests looked like at a larger scale. I liked the fossil area? I didn't pay too much attention to everything since I was way into dinosaurs growing up and kind of get the basics. There were still a few interesting things. There was a big focus on smaller reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs, many of which even I'd never heard of before. Some interesting signage on Andrew Carnegie's diplodocus. They have the type specimen for T. Rex on display which I nerded out over, hard.
There was also a big gallery on gems and jewelry. It was pretty. I like rocks. Lots of displays on quartz, which is the best rock. Wasn't expecting the radiation and florescence exhibits but those were probably the coolest ones.
Ice Age / Age of Mammals exhibit was fairly small but still good. Sometimes half of the skeleton would be just the skeleton while the other half would have an artist's recreation layered over it. I really liked that.
I skipped almost all the taxidermy stuff because I don't care for it. Skipped the Egypt gallery because time and a general aversion towards human remains.
There was a birdsong audio experience that played eight different audio tracks of birds on a half hour loop. I probably would've stayed and listened to the full thing but it didn't tell me which part of the loop they were on. I was in a bad mood, had a building headache, and that was enough for me to skip it.
I ended up visiting the Native American galleries. Something I found very interesting is that in the art wing there's a big display around a diorama talking about how it's problematic and how the museum intends to display problematic things going forward. And then they relegate Native American cultures to the same wing as rocks, fossils, birds, and taxidermy animals without a sign lol.
I liked the wing a lot? It focused on a mix of folklore, traditions, tools, and modernity for four-ish cultures. Cool seeing the differences side by side, how different groups adapted to the land, and how they've fared in a post-colonial world. I don't care to write a full walkthrough at the end of an already very long post, but I did enjoy it.
Final Thoughts
I'd recommend the Museum but not the Aviary. Certainly can't recommend traveling to the city at all unless you're only going to be out and about during standard business hours with money to spend.
Onto Pittsburgh Zoo in an hour or so. I've heard mixed things. And it looks like a rainy day, which might not be the absolute worst since it'll at least keep crowds away on a holiday weekend and it seems like Pittsburgh has more buildings than something like Kansas City. Train station doesn't have wifi, train probably won't, we'll see when I can get that review posted. Species list for the zoo will probably come later in the week.
Anyway, hi, I'm Persephone and I'm on an ill-advised quest to visit every* AZA accredited zoo.
*Except the one in Dubai because I'm illegal there.
That quest has taken me to Pennsylvania this weekend and I'll be back in the future. I thought I would group all of these trips into a single thread so I could do a ranking at the end. Saturday evening to yesterday morning I took the train into Pittsburgh for the National Aviary. I decided to also hit up the Pittsburgh Zoo while I was there since it's almost certainly getting accredited again in a few months and I would rather not have to repeat the trip. So, uh, let's start by reviewing Pittsburgh as a city!
I hate it. I hate it so much. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty. Downtown is in a river valley with some gorgeous forested hills on both sides. The PPG building is really cool looking. But, uh. They really hate homeless people here. They hate homeless people so much that it's pretty much impossible to be a traveler on foot. Let me explain.
I got off my train at 5:00 in the morning. The National Aviary didn't open until 10:00 a.m. None of the tourist things open until 10:00 a.m. So I had five hours to kill. I was exhausted since I don't sleep well on trains and wanted to nap in the station. Unfortunately, they have designed their seating so that it is impossible to lie down. They also don't have wifi in the station. There also wasn't wifi on the train. Since I couldn't nap and couldn't do work, I decided to wander the city. Except, again, nothing was open. All of the things open for breakfast downtown were takeout only so I couldn't even sit down, grab a bagel and some coffee, and access the internet. Also it was raining. The rain made everything 100x worse. I checked out the park at the point, which was very pretty. And also has no publicly accessible bathrooms. None of the parks do. The best I ever saw in the five hour span was a portable toilet I could smell from five feet away. I also never saw a bench without hostile architecture. Or public wifi. Not even the subway stations had bathrooms, although I did hide out under one for an hour or so because it was covered and the rain had picked up. I eventually just gave up and walked through the rain to the National Aviary, which is in a large park with no toilets. By the time I could finally get in my socks were soaked through, I hadn't been able to pee in hours, and I was exhausted and so, so very done with everything. Congrats Pittsburgh, your crusade to make life even worse for your most vulnerable citizens has made it pretty much impossible to be a tourist in your city. Hope you're happy.
Anyway. Onto the aviary. @TinoPup did a fantastic species list recently so I won't.
National Aviary
It was fine? I liked almost every exhibit. They even had one that I thought was great. But the whole time I kept thinking that this was more like Cincinnati's Wings of the World or whatever the Smithsonian is calling their bird house now than a standalone attraction. And then there was the price, which is the first chance a zoo has to upset or please me. $18 for an adult. Not terrible. But most of the crowd pleasing species are locked behind two shows that are $5 each. And lorikeet feeding is $3. I am obsessed with lorikeets so I paid for that and the indoor show. Didn't pay for Skydeck because it was raining and I was already done with rain. Still. $28 to see all of your animals at an attraction that I frankly don't think is the best aviary I've ever seen, and might not even be the second best, is an outrage. Comparing admission to the Smithsonian is maybe disingenuous, so let's go with Cincinnati. It would be $25 for an adult ticket for today, July 3, 2023. That's less money for a very good zoo than for an attraction that's maybe better than their bird house.
With that said, I was surprised how easy it was to spend a lot of time there. And how much I did like some of the rooms. The aviary starts with a tropical rainforest walkthrough that I'd expected to be the highlight of the aviary because, again, tropical rainforest walkthrough. Most zoos blow their birdhouse budget there. Species list was nice. Great argus, hyacinth macaw, and victoria crowned pigeon were the headlining birds. The macaws were being fairly lively, and argus was always in a place where he was well displayed, and the crowned pigeons were doing their usual 'I fear neither bird nor man nor god' routine. One was roosting on a nest the entire visit. I did notice that younger visitors were often harassing the birds when they got onto the path and staff usually were more concerned with pointing out the sloth or jotting down notes on their animal's behavior than they were with keeping kids from crowding out their less nimble birds. It was one of a few times I was somewhat disappointed in the public facing staff.
Canary's Call has a theme that birds are still the canary in the coal mine for the imminent ecological collapse. Most of the exhibits here are fine for the theme. Burrowing owls, some rarer Amazon species, Guam kingfishers. The two largest exhibits - a mixed species tropical aviary and a rainbow lorikeet feeding area - really aren't. The canaries themselves are in (relatively large) wrought iron cages. Really wish they replaced one of the larger exhibits with a Canary Islands focused one. Most of the rainforest birds could go into the walkthrough, I imagine the canaries could just take the lory's place as a feeding encounter. They would probably accept the stick feeding I've seen zoos use for budgies. Probably. I don't actually know much about bird husbandry.
Also capuchinbirds are great? They look like smaller, flamboyant vultures. My favorite bird from the trip.
Lorikeet feeding was kind of a bust for $3. The staff kept hurrying birds off of me once they'd stopped eating, wouldn't let them explore my shoulders / head even after I said I was experienced with the birds, knew the risks of getting shat upon or having them screech in my ear, was totally fine. That might be a bird flu thing idk. They wouldn't really explain why. I have a mane of very curly hair and the birds usually love exploring it for nesting material. The lories had a concrete floor, no water features, no live plants, but they did have a lot of branches to explore and a bunch of crude toys so I thought it wasn't a terrible exhibit for them. Also for $3 they don't give you much food. Done in maybe one very hungry bird or, in my case, two birds that aren't too hungry.
I went into the indoor show, Habitat Heroes, not expecting very much. Tino had suggested it was geared towards kids (it was) and I was thinking it would be like Kansas City's bird show that was over in maybe ten minutes after some quick tricks and free flight segments with the usual bird show cast. I really liked the show? Yes, the superhero theming they have going on around the aviary was kind of cheesy. But the bird selection and tasks were pretty great. Macaw, amazon, harris hawks, eagle owl, three-banded armadillo, grey crowned crane, bald eagle. The bald eagle was a no-show because he apparently didn't want to do it. Which is great! Zoos usually have a line thrown in about how ambassadors have the opportunity to decline but it was wonderful seeing a zoo respect the decision of the show's star like that. The eagle owl also didn't really want to leave the stage so they just kind of let him chill for a few minutes while talking about positive reinforcement. I don't know why the armadillo was there and I kind of wish they'd just put him into the rainforest aviary instead. There wasn't even an explanation given for their presence in the show script. Weird choice for a facility that very clearly shies away from mammals. (Three in the whole aviary.) At the end they had an amazon that took paper money and put it into the donation box. If you gave it a five you could get a button or a reusable straw. I didn't want to give the aviary any more money but I would happily give that bird a five for a straw. Good gimmick. Tbh I would've happily paid the full admission price at the start if a bird took my money. Show ran a half hour.
The penguin area was fine. Outdoor exhibit with indoor and outdoor viewing sections. Not too big, not horribly small. I wish they expanded it to nearly the entire courtyard since there's indoor viewing, anyway. I feel like if you're going to call yourself the National Aviary you need either a stellar collection or stellar exhibits, and they fell shy on both counts in my eyes.
The wetland aviary is the clear star of the complex. A pretty big glass box with free flight capabilities for large, colorful birds. The planting goes wide rather than tall, allowing for a pretty open sky. I saw a bunch of roseate spoonbills in free flight. The headliners either couldn't fly or didn't care to during my visit. Headlining species were the American flamingo, brown pelican, and blue-billed curassow. I'm not certain I've seen the curassow before and they are fascinating birds. They both seemed to be more interested in the visitor section of the exhibit than the bird section. The male was trying to subtly get closer to the female, who was busy perching in a fake tree and looking in the opposite direction. As with the pigeons and argus staff let kids get a little too close to the curassow for my (or the birds) comfort. A few kids almost touched the female before their parents stopped them. The pelican kept trying to get airborne but failed. Wing feathers didn't seem clipped. Maybe they'd gone for a swim a bit too recently? Hard to tell. Also not that many flamingoes for a flamboyance. Maybe seven. Not terrible, but less than I'm used to seeing at once.
The grassland exhibit is kind of just an enclosed hallway with some mulch and plants. Nothing bigger than a bobwhite or mid-sized dove. It was my second favorite exhibit there. It was cool seeing an emphasis on smaller birds, there weren't many people making noise but a lot of birdsong, and I adored the turquoise tanagers. If I had to spend al day in one of the three walkthroughs it would have been that one.
Well, probably not all day. There weren't any benches. The only benches in the tropical rainforest weren't at good viewing points. I know this was probably way down the list of considerations given the aviary's small footprint but after having spent the entire morning on my feet I just wanted somewhere to sit down and look at birds. The multispecies exhibits all share a problem of not having dedicated species-specific signage. The best you're going to get is the bird's name and appearance as well as a sign or two dedicated to the more charismatic residents.
The rest of the aviary was composed of habitats holding one or two species. None were particularly impressive, none were terribly disappointing. I liked the toco toucans. They had a feeder that required them to hang down from their branch and use their full beak length to access food. That was cool. My uber driver after the aviary told me that when she visited the toucans were struggling to figure out how to eat grapes with their beak. So apparently the toucans get good enrichment.
The condors have a nice enough aviary. So do all the outdoor birds of prey. And the cranes, which are lumped in with the king vultures. The kookaburras had signage asking guests if they'd heard the birds laughed with no signs saying not to laugh to the birds and no staff to monitor it. I'm sorry for those birds. The condors were in the exact same positions at 9:30 when I arrived a the park and 1:55 when I left. But then they decided to move while I was watching them from the window of an uber. Never change, birds.
Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History
I still had time to kill before I could check into my hotel. I'd heard people here talk highly about the natural history museum in passing so I figured, eh, why not? I mostly focused on the natural history side, but admission covers both. $25 for two good museums isn't bad. I also could pay / had to pay fifty cents for a locker to store my backpack in. Backpacks aren't allowed in the galleries and I didn't want to carry it around any longer than I had to.
The only parts of the art museum I went to were the sculpture and architecture halls. I am a casual fan of cool architecture from around the world and was... a little disappointed? Their entire collection was casts, which I'm entirely cool with as that lets museums display things without moving the original. No, I was disappointed the entire collection was Greco-Roman, Medieval Christian, and Renaissance. The cast and model display concept means you can ethically source your exhibits from anywhere and it's not a terrible loss to replace things or move them to storage. They could've compared sculptures and buildings from across civilizations rather than just across time. The exhibit was fine, but the signage was meh and I kept feeling like it could've been astounding. Like, an entire museum of just models and casts dedicated to humanity's urge to build things.
Anyway. Uh. Natural history? First time I've seen a gift shop entrance instead of an exit. I kind of skipped over or skimmed half of the museum because I was tired and I knew I couldn't get through the whole thing in three hours. I didn't do a species list because I don't care much for taxidermy and the entire living collection is locked behind a 1:30 show. I thought they'd at least have live insects in their insect wing, but, nope. Only taxidermy and some admittedly cool displays of what termite and ant nests looked like at a larger scale. I liked the fossil area? I didn't pay too much attention to everything since I was way into dinosaurs growing up and kind of get the basics. There were still a few interesting things. There was a big focus on smaller reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs, many of which even I'd never heard of before. Some interesting signage on Andrew Carnegie's diplodocus. They have the type specimen for T. Rex on display which I nerded out over, hard.
There was also a big gallery on gems and jewelry. It was pretty. I like rocks. Lots of displays on quartz, which is the best rock. Wasn't expecting the radiation and florescence exhibits but those were probably the coolest ones.
Ice Age / Age of Mammals exhibit was fairly small but still good. Sometimes half of the skeleton would be just the skeleton while the other half would have an artist's recreation layered over it. I really liked that.
I skipped almost all the taxidermy stuff because I don't care for it. Skipped the Egypt gallery because time and a general aversion towards human remains.
There was a birdsong audio experience that played eight different audio tracks of birds on a half hour loop. I probably would've stayed and listened to the full thing but it didn't tell me which part of the loop they were on. I was in a bad mood, had a building headache, and that was enough for me to skip it.
I ended up visiting the Native American galleries. Something I found very interesting is that in the art wing there's a big display around a diorama talking about how it's problematic and how the museum intends to display problematic things going forward. And then they relegate Native American cultures to the same wing as rocks, fossils, birds, and taxidermy animals without a sign lol.
I liked the wing a lot? It focused on a mix of folklore, traditions, tools, and modernity for four-ish cultures. Cool seeing the differences side by side, how different groups adapted to the land, and how they've fared in a post-colonial world. I don't care to write a full walkthrough at the end of an already very long post, but I did enjoy it.
Final Thoughts
I'd recommend the Museum but not the Aviary. Certainly can't recommend traveling to the city at all unless you're only going to be out and about during standard business hours with money to spend.
Onto Pittsburgh Zoo in an hour or so. I've heard mixed things. And it looks like a rainy day, which might not be the absolute worst since it'll at least keep crowds away on a holiday weekend and it seems like Pittsburgh has more buildings than something like Kansas City. Train station doesn't have wifi, train probably won't, we'll see when I can get that review posted. Species list for the zoo will probably come later in the week.
