I'm a huge nerd -- I love crystals. When I found out about this museum I dragged along my suffering hubby and cousin. She has this unholy and frankly, an embarrassing love of rocks so she was only too happy to go.
This somewhat small museum houses an amazing collection of rocks and crystals in various stages. It's not quite the collection one would find in say...the Chicago Museum of Mining and Minerals, but this is darn good, too!
It's a bit disorganized, but if you're happy to wander and read you won't have any problems here.
The staff is friendly and helpful. The gift shop? So so. Nothing I'd write home about.
There is a nominal fee to get in, but you do tend to spend a lot of time roaming around and looking at rocks and various crytsals. They've got a hefty collection of them. I wish they had more precious gemstones in their finished cut and polished state, but I was quite happy with what I found.
It pays to return every few months because they have new exhibits and some of them are quite cute. So far my most favorite display they did was make food out of various rocks and crystals...it was amazing and so realistic. When you got up close and studied the 'food', you soon realized that it's all rock and crystals. One could tell it took a lot of time and effort to get that done.
It's a great way to pass an afternoon and even a person who dislikes rocks and gemstones would definitely be enthralled with this museum.