What an amazing resource that West Virginia University has opened up to the community! The WVU…read morePlanetarium and Observatory is located inside the university, but everyone is welcome to visit for tours and planetarium shows. Best of all: Planetarium shows and tours are free! But you need to make a reservation online, so they know who to expect. You can't just drop in. There are several different shows you can see, all of them around 15 to 25 minutes, and all of them projected onto the planetarium dome. It's a full-spectrum experience. We chose one of the more popular shows, Dynamic Earth, voiced by Liam Neeson. I learned some cool things about the planets, like the fact that Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system because it has a greenhouse effect going on. All this time, I thought Mercury was the hottest because it's closest to the sun! I love learning new things. Before the show, a grad student at WVU gave us a brief intro about space and planets, and asked my children questions about space. My kids know a lot about space, and they are cocky little buggers and like to impress people with their knowledge, so this was their time to shine. Honestly, even I was impressed with their space knowledge -- I had no idea my youngest child knew the number and name of Mars' moons! Dang. After the show, you get to explore the planetarium's rooftop observatory. There's a huge telescope up there, and if you're visiting at night, you can see planets and stars. We were visiting during the day, though, so we didn't see much. But it was still neat to look through a huge telescope. The planetarium is located on the PL floor, which is only accessible when staff members are there and ready to receive you. We got there a little early and were not able to access the PL floor until someone put a key in the elevator and let us go up. So if you get there early and can't get up to the planetarium, that's why.

The Coliseum is a basket ball arena that is the home for WVU Mountaineer cagers. The arena has…read morehosted conference basketball tournament championships, NCAA basketball, as well as many other tournaments, concerts and events. The arena has close to 14000 seats and has a couple of statues outside. Well one statue belongs to NBA great, Jerry West who attended WVU. If you don't know Jerry West, then you will definitely recognize him if you have ever seen the NBA logo. The other statue belongs to Rodney Clark "Hot Rod" Hundley, who I never heard of till I visited. I didn't go inside the arena as there were no events. My main reason for the visit was the Jerry West statue while I was in Morgantown.

A really cool stadium with gorgeous views! Everyone here who was working was very kind and beer and…read morefood lines went quick. The prices are really fair for drinks too. Only complaint is that the bathrooms need an update and to be larger. Men's bathroom lines were 5x longer than woman's bathrooms, even during the game itself.

Great resource for the local community. Work of local artists on display and some for sale, and…read morehoused in a historic old post office (ask for the tour!)

Although it was off season in November, we had a beautiful stroll through the gardens. While…read moregetting some steps in, we stopped by the visitor center and one of the other buildings to use the restroom. There was plenty of parking in different areas along the one way loop through the park. There was plenty of flat trails or elevation if that is what you are looking for. I can only imagine how beautiful it is while everything is in bloom.

The West Virginia Botanic Garden wasn't quite blooming when we visited in the spring, and the trees…read morewere still bare, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Plus, it's free. I mean, come on! How can you not like a free botanic garden? Plus, it's the only botanical garden in the state of West Virginia. Alright, that settles it! This place is great. It was nice to walk around this free and unique botanical garden, and see what we could see. If you start at the education center, you can follow a path by foot that will take you down to the Children's Adventure Garden, the Butterfly Garden and the Secret Garden. But if you're not up for walking, you can also drive there. There's a parking lot that's right next to all of those areas. I have children, so we headed straight to the children's garden. It's tiny and meant for tiny people, which I sometimes forget my children are not anymore. This children's garden would be perfect for toddlers and preschoolers. There are rocks to climb, a tunnel to go through, a mini rock wall to scale, and some chairs to sit in. There's also a sensory table with some sand and shovels, which did not impress my almost-tween child who was playing with it. But it's hard to impress a tween, you know? I think young children will love all of the children's garden (even the sandbox sensory table) because young children love things more easily than us older people. The botanical garden has a couple of different trails that you can follow that we did not during our visit. There is a fairy garden here, as well as a few bridges, an overlook and a big pond. If we had more time and energy, we definitely would have followed the trails to see all of these things! We did discover some hammocks that were connected to a couple of trees, which was a nice surprise. It was cool to just rock gently, supported by trees, breathing in the air that the trees were providing.