Labour Day with Dinosaurs

[Sep 1 2014]

I am willing to admit that I have never been to Vancouver. It is only 12 hours away and I've never been (even though I've been next door in Seattle). That seems crazy, until you realize that R had never once been to Drumheller... and that's only 90 minutes away. Apparently, R's mom had never been either, and neither had R's grandma, so it was almost a family tradition. Well, we broke R's streak on Labour Day, and R's parents took grandma M a few days later, so all that's really left is Vancouver.

We spent several hours in the museum, taking in all the sights, but reading few of the info panels. When you are with young kids, it's less about the science and more about the experience. They weren't interested in trying to read any of the writing, but there were two spots where you could pick up this little speaker and hold it to your ear and they absolutely loved that. The other thing that they really loved was the pollen room, where you gather up little spongy balls and "pollenate" this huge flowers by shooting the balls out of vacuum tubes. We went did that room twice. The other thing we did twice was the grip strength tester. You squeeze this little metal thing and it compares the strength of your grip to the strength of certain animals. Scott loved that thing for some reason.

S & T-Rex


K & T-Rex


Apatosaurus


Mammoth


Pollen Room


On the bluffs


After the museum we climbed up inside the world's largest dinosaur. It was pretty awesome and definitely worth the $3 admission to go up at least once in your lifetime. From there we checked out the suspension bridge, which crosses the Red Deer River in the middle of nowhere because it was originally used for coal mining and the mine is now closed. However, they maintain the bridge and it is wobbly and sort of freaky and a great tourist value (free). The kids thought is was a bit freaky, but then they got used to it. There were a lot of adults who seemed even more scared than the kids. I don't quite understand that.

Scott: "What if the bridge fell?"
Dad: "We would all get wet."
Scott: "I would be fine if it fell from here."

Hoodoos
One of our last stops was to go to the Hoodoos, and it turned out to be the highlight of the day for the kids.
Katie climbing with help at first and then climbing alone
Scott climbing alone all the way up to "the black part up high"

Katie: I want to live beside this place.



Scott


Katie


Following


Driving over the 11 bridges to the mining ghost town of Wayne. We asked Scott to pause his show and help us count the bridges to the town.
Scott: "I can watch my show and still count bridges"