Ten hour round trip for a two and one-half hour field trip. The math doesn't work out logically, but the Kid loved the science museum. He also loved the roller coasters at the former Camp Snoopy at Mall of America. I remain convinced that roller coasters are best after-the-fact and not during.
Best part - watching the Kid manipulate the wave pool controls to adjust the bottom, frequency and size and watch the waves change shape, when they broke on the 'beach' and so on. He went at this for a real long time.
And there is news on the dinosaur front! Sauropods, when I was a child, lived in swamps because their enormous bulk would collapse on land. This seemed an unlikely survival strategy but whatever.
Sometime between 'when I was a child' and 'now' Learned Scientists changed their minds. Sauropods are now nimble critters, bounding across the landscape like gazelle. I'd like to see Martin Perkins capture one in a net - boy that would make a keen Wild Kingdom episode, hunh?
Diplodocus could even use his tail like a bull-whip and slap the carnivores around like Billy Sunday whacking drunks in a saloon.
Best part - watching the Kid manipulate the wave pool controls to adjust the bottom, frequency and size and watch the waves change shape, when they broke on the 'beach' and so on. He went at this for a real long time.
And there is news on the dinosaur front! Sauropods, when I was a child, lived in swamps because their enormous bulk would collapse on land. This seemed an unlikely survival strategy but whatever.
Sometime between 'when I was a child' and 'now' Learned Scientists changed their minds. Sauropods are now nimble critters, bounding across the landscape like gazelle. I'd like to see Martin Perkins capture one in a net - boy that would make a keen Wild Kingdom episode, hunh?
Diplodocus could even use his tail like a bull-whip and slap the carnivores around like Billy Sunday whacking drunks in a saloon.
