Day 24 - Children's Creativity Museum

Thursday, 15 September

We took the grandsons to Chattanooga to visit the Children's Creativity Museum today... On the way, we passed the Kubota factory and I had to get a photo of the inventory... this is only part of the machines there...

When we got to the museum, we had a little picnic lunch in front of AT&T Field, which is directly behind the museum...

In front of the museum there is a giant bubble wand that allows you to be inside the bubble as it forms... the wind made it a little difficult, but deb got a shot of each of the boys inside a bubble...

One of the most popular exhibits has to do with water and activities that are done on the water... Kaleb enjoyed pretending he was a Harbor Pilot...

Deb took this shot of me from up on an observation deck that overlooks the "Splash" exhibit...

The boys really enjoyed pulling the levers and turning the wheels to move water through the exhibits... one of my favorites was the scale model of the river locks...

The exhibit is called "Splash" for a good reason... Hyrum was caught putting the dryers to good use...

Ammon stayed behind the Plexiglas to stay dry...

During the visit, there was a program called "ExtraordinAIR"... the boys were the only ones in the lab so they got to participate in all the experiments... some of them did not go as planned because the equipment did not function as anticipated... This gave the boys an opportunity to come up with alternative solutions to the problems, which actually worked... I think the presenter was quite surprised and impressed with the ingenuity that Ammon and Kaleb displayed... they actually saved the show!

They also had a genealogy exhibit... (That was a joke!)

Another one of the boy's favorite exhibits was the Paleontology exhibit... Kaleb worked feverishly to unearth a fossil while a "Prentendasaurus" romped around behind him...

We also studied sound and music (we made a recording while singing "On Top Of Old Rocky Top"), and kinetics.

Another thing the boys and Deb really enjoyed was the Trading Post... here you can bring in rocks, bones, leaves, fossils, etc., from other places in the country and trade them in for points that can be used to "purchase" other specimens in the Trading Post.  Deb had some rocks in her bag that she brought to give to the boys... they came in handy for this display... the boys all got at least 250 points each in their accounts.  The woman running the exhibit told the boys that she would give them points equal to the number of miles from the specimen source to the museum... They have asked us to send them some Oregon Beach sand for trading... I knew there was a reason I have saved the jar of Mt.Saint Helens ash all of these years!

When it was time to close, which came too soon, this little guy was not very happy... yes that is genuine...

When we got home, I stopped at the barn and fed the horses... something I really enjoy!

After dinner, a couple of episodes of "Top Shot", and a movie, the kids and Deb are now in bed... I will join them after finishing the latest episode of GBTV...