Dima and I went to the Franklin Institute today - since Josh is having his only- child time with my parents (and doing nicely as I hear) I decided to do something special with Dima while we had the time alone. Once we got there -no major delays and not a bad drive into town during rush hour - definitely nothing like DC traffic! - we started with the upstairs which included a " sports challenge" area where you goof around with different experimental things that demonstrate the need for quick reflexes in race car driving and the way to build momentum while doing and axel in skating. I thought he'd like that one but wouldn't let me read the instructions on any of them before trying them out then kept getting frustrated when they weren't doing much or what he thought they should. That didn't last long at all.
We made our way to the Galileo exhibit:
http://www2.fi.edu/exhibits/traveling/galileo
Don't ask me what most of the things were - instead I could have been counting the number of times he said "Can we go yet?/ or can we leave? or I'm bored" as I realized it probably wasn't the smartest thing to bring him to - but then a docent helped him discover cool things about the various mirrors and lenses that were set up. He invited us to turn back for a special up close look at Galileo's telescope and I wanted to go do it so we went. Dima got to look through a telescope that Galileo himself used - thought that it was the coolest thing the significance was totally lost on Dima.
There was some whining when I got us to the line for the planetarium show (this line will take forever, my neck's gonna hurt, ...) but he was glad we went cause he was awed by the show.
I made him go through the Giant Heart by himself because I would have been totally claustrophobic in there - I was on a tube slide maybe 4 feet long not too long ago at a playground and very uncomfortable - and have had bad dreams about that kind of stuff. It didn't seem so confining when I was younger!! .... or maybe that's where those dreams came from...?? I thought it best not to even try it - he did it by himself and came out "luku" his description of when he's really excited - and I asked later why he was like that and he said it was because he was scared.
On our way home I asked him what his favorite part of the day was and his answer was the water-play stuff in the KidScience area was the best - there were areas where the kids could - okay I was doing it too - take tubes and connectors and make a fountain with a valve you pump yourself. So again the water is his thing. There's a surprise!!
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If you're a geocacher and don't want too much information about a certain cache in Philadelphia stop reading here .....................
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If you're a potential cacher this is enough to get you going - If you're serious about trying this and really interested give me a call - I'll go with you whenever you want to try one. I'll line some up if anyone wants to try it while we're at the gaufest:
Another really cool thing we did while in town was go find two caches one was standard and the other outstanding. Since it was rainy and we were getting hungry I had to be selective in the caches to try this afternoon. I picked one that other cachers seemed to hold in high regard:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=0f91534c-44b2-49bc-b5f0-8c9bd9538604
This was one of the coolest caches I've seen so far. It was not really easy zeroing in on the exact location with clouds over head and buildings nearby. Like one of the other finders of the cache posted I felt like I was in a movie - going through the stacks and coming up with the find. At first I was over thinking it... maybe there's a vampire statue or mummy or relic of some sort with a clue. Nothing like that was obvious and since it says "something Anne Rice left behind" I decided on the obvious approach - while on the way to the fiction department I'm thinking - take out an Anne Rice and look behind it to the left - it was easier and more clever than that - it was in a hollowed out Anne Rice "The Mummy" book - like one you can get to keep your valuables in. That was the cache - with log book and trading stuff and a travel bug, right on the shelves of the public "free" library!! BTW: is there also a "pay" library in Philadelphia?
I haven't been motivated before this to put out my own caches but this got my mind going - How to do this myself - who do you ask for permission?? can I do this in used book stores?? How can I do this? This is why I got into this hobby it makes you use your mind and you visit places that you might not usually see. Very cool!!
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