I'm behind!! I'm going to have lots more to update soon. Today I do believe we are going to go to Durham. Home of the Durham Bulls - you may remember the movie. Here's a little trivia my dh is an extra in that movie. He claims he can be seen in the stands during the wedding scene. We are going to have to get down there to a ball game soon. That will be a blast! It's such a pretty ball park too. The new one - the old one shown in the movie has been "retired".
Today is an installment of our visit to the Durham Museum of Science. This is a very eclectic museum. It opened many years ago with a collection of Space memorabilia from NC astronauts and has some fantastic learning centers about astronauts - a "space capsule" the kids can play in and a rebuilt Moon scene - films of early missile launches some they said contained monkeys. Oh and real moon rocks! Space suits - old radios. Some transmissions. I could have spent the entire visit right there.
The museum expanded to include weather, science, outdoors, gardens, butterflies, wind, animals. The museum is very hands on so the kids had lots of fun.
I've got lots of pictures of the girls at the indoor exhibits. I think the giant ant farm one came out rather nicely but I'll spare you those. You don't need to see every exhibit that they had. Some were really cool though like encasing yourself in a giant bubble. Once you are done with the indoors - there's LOTS to do outdoors. Playgrounds - an old train caboose to run through. Noise makers ... Noise noise noise! Needless to say the kids had a BLAST in this area.
Then you get to a regular playground. I suppose it's meant to give the kids and parents a little breather. Though I'll have to say Abigail wasn't doing much resting and breathing!
From there you keep wandering and you come to a farm animal section - your goats, cows, chickens, turkeys. They added in some rabbits, etc. The highlight of that was the big pig who lives with the goose.
Next down the trail is the butterfly house, one section of which contains insects. I managed to avoid that section. David usually tries to drag me in there and I'm sure if Abigail was really paying attention she would have too. The butterfly house is beautiful. It was one large greenhouse with butterflies everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. I'll bore you with some fauna pictures then you can see some butterflies.
After the butterfly house comes the train! Cassie didn't enjoy it as much as she used to when she got to ride little trains like this. That was a bit of a sad moment for me - a time gone by. But it was a hot day and once the train got moving she couldn't help but at least appreciate the breeze! Me -I'll never get too old to ride a choo choo train!! That last picture is just me being goofy taking pictures of tree tops from the train. The train ride goes through a heavily wooded area. It was very pretty.
Past the train depot and further down the trail was a big wind exhibit which included experiments you could do with little boats on the water and some foxes and stuff. I would have really loved to play with the boats. But alas we were hot and tired and we ran out of time - the museum was only open another half hour. So we decided to end it there. It's a great little museum!
Oh crap - I almost forgot the little birds! I think these are quail. Y'all will need to tell me what you think. It was a whole family of them - two adults and two little babies. They moved so fast I couldn't get the whole family. The about ran my foot over when we were walking down the trail. They came shooting out of nowhere from the bushes. Across the walkway then into some brush on the other side.
I'm sure I got this guy because he was playing blocker until the Momma got the babies to a safe spot.
...... Ok until the next photo installment and /or blog update. I'll either bore you with Zoo pictures of I'll have some beach pictures for ya.
Ciao!
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