SciWorks

Let's revisit spring break!  It is hard to claim a spring break, with my kids not in school, but I do get my night of teaching off and the neighbors are out of school, so we kind of have a spring break.  And we decided to make the trek to Winston Salem to the SciWorks museum.  It is a good haul, about 90 miles, so it has been on of the trips that was designated as eventual but required energy and planning. Spring break, it turns out, gave us that opportunity.  The nice part was that it was not crazy despite kids being out of school.  The same could not be said, apparently, of the zoo and our favorite Durham museum, as rumor has it that they were mad houses.  

The final analysis was that it was worth the trip, maybe we would go back before the end of summer but it did not land in the absolutely must do again soon category. 

The museum wasn't huge, so we saw all of it that day.  There were a few highlights, the crazy air lift chair being the coolest.  There was definitely one lowlight... Getting the three year old neighbor (L) and Stephanie locked in the planetarium during the show without an adult when I left to quiet Gwen and then my friend brought our 5 year old neighbor (E) out to go to the bathroom.  Seriously, the doors to the theater lock when you leave.  So Blake, E, Gwen and I were out while Stephanie and L were inside.    I wasn't worried, but Blake said that she was really worried about L panicking when she didn't come back.  I assured her that Stephanie would take car of L, but now is am also really worried... L is only 3! Meanwhile, the front desk people would not let us back in, and it turns out, I had it totally backwards.  Stephanie didn't realize that I had left with Gwen and panicked when I wasn't there.  Meanwhile L was fine and trying to help Stephanie by offering to go in search of Blake.  Ironically, I feel like Stephanie made the best choice by convincing L to stay where they were and not letting her leave, but if she had let her go, we would have been able to get back in. Anyway, they were alone for about ten minutes and we talked about what happened and why she made a good choice and what other options she had so it was probably a good learning experience, but it took a fair bit of calming down before more museum fun could happen.  Oh, and it was the worst planetarium show...It was just terrible!  Had it been a decent show, maybe she wouldn't have even realized she was alone.

I can't lie... The locking into the theater was a bit of a damper and may have effected my overall opinion of the place.  If we are going to pull my standard of comparison, the Museum of Life and Science, this place was a 7 at best, and that was before they secured the theater as if it were Fort Knox.  But still, there is a highlight reel...

I declared getting this picture to be "like Christmas" because they were both looking and smiling.  And then I realized it was the complete opposite of Christmas, during which 200+ photos did not result in the same, and ultimately had Stephanie declaring Gwen to be "an angry little elf"

They had an indoor fishing river.  Everyone had their own technique...

Little race cars, super popular!