Vacation Post III

Day four saw us heading into Salt Lake City.  We decided to leave the car in Lehi and ride the train in.  For twenty dollars we could ride all public transit all day and we wouldn't need to try to find (and pay for) parking in downtown Salt Lake.  That was the adult reason for taking the train.  The kids reasoning was more like, "A train!  I've never ridden a train!  Can we ride on the upstairs part of the train?!  Can we please take the train into Salt Lake?"  I think the train was a high point of the trip.

The train was twenty minutes late but it finally showed up.  Here we are waiting for it to stop to we can board.

Don't let that face fool you.  Sam loved the train and we DID get to sit in the upstairs part.  How lucky are we?!

Once in Salt Lake we were going to head straight to the Temple Square area, but a lady on the train suggested we stop at the Planetarium first.  It is right on the way and is free to all, so we went.

 We made some tornadoes,

 played with some electricity,

and got trapped in the gift shop.  After an hour we had seen and done all the free stuff, so we continued on our way.

We stopped at Temple Square to eat a picnic lunch but didn't linger long.  The kids had been told about the Beehive House (President Young's home) and were dying to check it out.  We were given a tour by a couple of beautiful sister missionaries with very thick Italian and Mexican accents.  We saw many beautiful things and learned a little church history and the kids were really bored, even though they tried hard to stay polite.

After the disappointment of the Beehive House we headed to the Family Search Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  It was surprisingly not boring.  There were games and pictures.  There was an old fashioned kitchen to play in.  And there were dress up clothes.

Sam is an historically accurate gaucho.  I'm sure he would fit right into any historically accurate painting.

Libby wanted to be a Pilgrim, but alas the dress was too small and she got very stuck. 

 With a little wiggling we got her buttoned up.

 They even had a little Ellis Island photo op set up.

 My kids made good use of it.

Numerous times.  The centenarian sister missionary on a walker was very patient.

After Salt Lake we headed back to Lehi and got in the van.  Instead of heading straight back to camp, we hit MY vacation destination.  I finally visited IKEA!!  The kids ate Swedish Meatballs, I looked at furniture and drooled.  I plan on going back sometime soon with a wad of cash and no kids.  It will be the highlight of my decade.

On day five, the last full day of our vacation, we headed back to Thanksgiving Point.  We went to the farm experience attraction.  It was overrun with preschoolers, toddlers, infants and their mommas.  Michael looked around and felt instantly alone after realizing he was one of three adult males among the sea of diaper bags.  Ethan was too big (you have to weigh less than 100 pounds) to go on the pony ride and Libby was too stressed out.  Grace and Sam enjoyed it.

My big kids didn't enjoy it nearly as much.  The whole petting zoo thing is a little beneath their maturity level.

After about an hour we headed over to the Museum of Ancient History.  No photos.  They are on my camera which is...well if you see it let me know.  I'm sure it is not too, too lost.

Here the big kids (especially Ethan) found lots of interesting things.  Fossils, dinosaurs, history, giant dinosaurs, mammoths, big dioramas, a before-the-beginning-of-the-earth space tunnel thing that terrified Sam (he would NOT walk through it and had to be carried; several times), giant sea turtles, and more dinosaurs.  It was pretty incredible.  We lasted an hour and a half.  Then the little kids were done.

We took pity on everyone and took them back to the Museum of Natural Curiosity (again the pictures are on my runaway camera).  We stayed there for hours.  We finally had to leave so the museum could close.   The kids pretended to rob banks, put on plays, banged on musical instruments, played tricks on their eyes, climbed rope bridges, explored man made caves, and fed koi (I swear to you they were possessed) fish.  You would hold one little pellet of food over the water and two hundred fish would swarm.  The ones on the bottom would push so wildly the fish above them would be pushed entirely out of the water.  All the while they are making gulping noises and slithery sounds by rubbing against each other.  I hope I never get eaten alive by fish.  I don't want gulping slithering sounds to be the last noise I ever hear.  It was terrifying.  So of course we had to buy more fish food and keep feeding them.

We went home tired but happy (and NO flat tires!).  We also have a great appreciation for our Discovery Center of Idaho membership.  Because they and Thanksgiving Point are part of ASTC, we were able to get into all the museums for FREE.  Our first day's adventure easily cost more than the yearly fee we pay for our membership.  Yay for the DCI!