The Best Landmarks in Mesa

What a great place to take an aviation buff or just family/friends to spend an hour or two. Its a pretty decently sized museum. The hangar the planes are located in is clean, well-labeled, and informative. I took my son there on a hot summer afternoon and we arrived just as a tour group departed. We floated around the gift shop for a few minutes, bought our tickets and was greeted by a docent who was super friendly. He escorted us out into the hangar and started the usual spiel about each thing we looked at, and seeing how knowledgeable I already was about the aircraft (Im a self-proclaimed avgeek), he kindly let us go our own way, seeing we weren't in need of assistance.

I took my 4 and 6 yo daughters to IDEA today. They spent the entire day there, a couple hours in the child play area, then several hours learning about bugs in the bug exhibit. The museum definitely kept their interest; from making a farm garden plot in the play area, creating crafts, doing the bee wriggle dance in bee costumes, putting on a bug themed puppet show, to looking at a slew of preserved bug specimens, the museum offered much more than we could have anticipated. We would not hesitate to go again and will be recommending IDEA to all of our friends with kids.

Had a day to check out the sites around Phoenix. Went to the Mesa Historical Museum and was pleasantly surprised. I love anything dinosaur and this museum didn't disappoint. Great displays and full skeletons. Many different species. The Native American displays and artifacts depicted the local tribe - the Hohokum - who had many advances, including irrigation of crops. Very informative. Many hands on activities for kids. There were puzzles in various containers throughout the museum. The puzzles were of dinosaurs, pottery, and other items of interest for kids. Large pieces were appropriate for all kids. There were also many different places to touch items like minerals, dinosaur bones.