We didn’t know about the Museum of World Insects and Natural Wonders when we were planning our trip. It’s just a few blocks from the home of the friends we stayed with, so we decided to spend a couple of hours there one afternoon. The museum has two stories, but even so it is not very large. The owners are a couple who spent many years researching mosquitoes and disease transmission. Over the course of many research trips, they amassed a large number of specimens of beetles, butterflies, sea shells, assorted creepy crawlies, and of course—mosquitoes. On the day we visited, we met the husband of the pair, who was rather eccentric and also very welcoming and gracious. Dan and I both enjoyed poring over the specimens on the second floor, particularly the ones filled with large and colorful beetles and the leaf and stick insects. We just don’t get bugs like that in California!