Science museum

After visiting the amazing Durham science museum last month, we decided it was high time that we check out the one right here in Albuquerque. We’ve been three times now and seen most of the exhibits, so here’s a little tour of Luke’s highlights.

1. The trains. The way Luke plays with these makes me search Craig’s List for more train equipment. But then I remember that our house lacks a good spot for a permanent train installation and I close that browser window. I think Explora is the perfect place for you to play with these, Luke!

2. The outdoor playground. The first time I went down a roller slide, Luke was on my lap. I had one hand holding him and the other gracefully gripped my lukewarm coffee. I quickly learned that roller slides can pack some speed, but without a free hand I was powerless to slow our descent. We flew off the bottom, landing with an embarrassing thud on my then very sore behind. Now I’ve adopted a ground-based assistance strategy.

3. This air chute in the toddler room is genius. Kids place the scarves in the bottom and the air flow shoots them upwards. Big wow factor while being completely safe, sturdy, and non-messy!

4. This one is Mommy’s favorite. In a long table filled with water, a current flows from one end and there are all sorts of pieces you can insert to stop, mitigate, or redirect the water’s flow. When Luke is ready to move on to the next exhibit, I’m only halfway through my masterplan to maximize the flow’s force and direct it along an interesting path. But in this pic I’m trying to roll up Luke’s sleeves. First things first!

And of course we brought our Ella-bug who who had a grand time watching all the activity.

Now that the temps have creeped near 100 and our swamp cooler has been giving us trouble, the fact that most of Explora is inside a deliciously cooled building is a pretty major perk too. Need a little more deterrence from outdoor activity? Check out the icons chosen by the National Weather Service for the next three days. I’ve shown you this one before, Wednesday’s tagline is “areas of smoke” but it looks more like a volcano alert.

And this is Thursday and Friday’s icon, with the tagline “hot”. We think this picture is from the Mars Rover; Albuquerque may be semi-desert but it never looks this desolate.

Fortunately, Saturday’s icon is much prettier and even looks like an Earth shot. Erik and I will have to put it to good use!