Short but sweet Friday

In November Shabbos starts at around 4p.m. Most activities (museums, national parks, stores etc.) close around noon if they are open at all in order for everyone to get ready. I found that even places that are open on Shabbos close early Friday. So even though I did not need to prepare for Shabbos to the degree that I would if I were home, I needed to find something nearby, and brief to do Friday morning.
The Biblical Museum of Natural History http://www.biblicalnaturalhistory.org/ filled the bill exactly. One catch to the whole deal was they require a minimum of 8 people to open for an English tour on Friday. We were 4 if you count Atara. I emailed the museum informing them that we are more than happy to join another group or to have other people join us to fill the quota. On Thursday morning they phoned me to let me know that another small family from Efrat was interested in coming to the museum and also needed a few more people to join. A shidduch was made.
The Biblical Museum of Natural History is in Beit Shemesh, just a few minutes down the highway. It consists of 2 large rooms. The first room has a few tanks with fish and reptiles, a bird, some animal bones and shells. We were greeted by our guide. Instead of a museum where you wander around reading inscriptions, the guide talks to you about animals in the Tanach. He talked about different snails and sea creatures. He showed us different bones and skins. We watched a short video about lions all the while connecting the animals to Torah and Israel.

touching things we shouldn't have, but look at that happy face

The second room had more taxidermy. We walked around the full size animals continuing the discussion about their historical basis in Israel. He talked about kosher birds and fish. He showed us real hooves of kosher and non-kosher animals. We got to see a variety of insects including the specific kosher grasshopper. There were several tanks and cages of live animals and reptiles. One of the highlights was him feeding a very large lizard an egg for lunch. We also talked about the first animal mentioned in the Torah, the snake. The museum has a few snakes that can be held or touched. Atara thought this was the greatest. She loved petting the snake and was desperate to touch its head.
Another wall of artifacts was kosher and non-kosher shofars. If germs don't bother you much you can try blowing the varies hollow horns.  Outside they had some animals that could be pet or held such as rabbits, tortoises, and birds. We stayed there until everyone was all touched out.
All in all we were there for about 2 hours. We came back home for lunch, a basic cleaning of our apartment and to get ready for Shabbos.