Stay Home While Roaming the ‘Haunted Museum'

A haunted house is one matter, but an entire haunted museum?

That's a whole different spooky scene, through and through.

After all, a house is far smaller than a sizable cultural institution, meaning a haunted museum promises more rooms to peek inside, more corridors to explore, more exhibition halls to haunt, and more thrills overall.

And if those thrills are of the spider-iest, slimiest sort? Call all the kids you know, and nature lovers, too, for the tempting mix of things to learn and things to eek-out over will likely enthrall.

Exploring haunted corridor after haunted exhibition hall inside a haunted museum isn't happening in 2020, at least not in the you-are-there sense.

So the Natural History Museum's popular Haunted Museum will happily haunt families at home this time around, with a full and frightful slate of learning-based moments.

Those moments will include a spider-themed Q&A, if you're arachna-curious, and a gourd time with a palenontologist (yep, pumpkin-carving is the focus).

You'll also dig deeper into the "bizarre" world of fishes, slimy stories, and slimy experiments, too.

More slime, all the time, come late October, the official slimiest stretch of the year.

The cost to join the slimed-out celebration? A $25 donation, which helps out the "spooky, slimy research" performed at the venerable museum daily.

While the Haunted Museum will be fully virtual, and the interior spaces of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County remain closed, there is a place where you can commune with some autumnal wonders in-person.

Or maybe "in-spider" is more accurate. It's Spider Pavilion, which spins its fascinating, look-closer web just outside the Exposition Park destination from Oct. 25-Nov. 29, 2020.

Tickets for the event, which will observe social distancing and limited capacity (and, yep, face coverings are required, too), just went on sale on Oct. 14, so scurry and secure your $6-per-person entry now.