Science on the Road Trip

Sep. 19, 2008 - Zoology on the Road

It's September and many of our friends kids are back in their usual setting, a classroom. While we have spent a few weeks now scattering through the house with books, reading and learning to like math again, a good road trip is always more fun. My three boys (10, 7, and 3) and I left Indiana last Tuesday a..m and began a week long adventure, ending up in Georgia before we rounded back north again. We packed the car full of entertainment, workbooks nobody ever openned, videos on history and other fun stuff. However, Garfield won out as the book of choice, along with a few on WWII and Iwo Jima. These are Ben's favorite leisure reading. Sometimes humor is sadly lacking in our days, so it was nice to see them laughing as they travelled.

Here are some highlights of our trip:

Tuesday: Cincinnati Zoo: Comments - Expensive, even with 50% off reciprocal membership. Large zoo, great exhibits, but not a zoo to fit in in half a day. Insect and ant exhibit was GREAT. There was no one there, it was after Labor Day. This would be true of most of our stops.

Wednesday: Creation Museum, Petersburg, KY. LOVED IT!

This is the most well organized, friendly, awe inspiring museum I have ever been too. It began with a beautiful botanical garden (loved the bog with carniverous plants), a petting zoo with a zonkey, zorse, camel, pig and more, then we went inside. The planetarium was a ceiling dome theater where it felt like you were flying through the constellations, to different galaxies, all while hearing facts about the life of blue stars, Betalguise, a star much larger than the sun, and perspective on how vast space is. The video programs were great and included 4D effects and debates from both sides of the "millions of years" controversy. There were anamatronic characters, a replica of 1% of Noah's ark to scale, and more great information to make you think that all is not always as our culture seems to present. The store is a great place for books on creation science and history (you may find things at better prices at Library and Educational Services online on some of the items). The best thing is that my kids sat down and listened to every presentation, read the plaquards and talked about what they were hearing. I've not seen them do so much of that at traditional museums. We stayed until 4:00 and hated to leave even then, but had to drive to Knoxville to stay at my parents that night.

Family visit: A visit with my parents was good and included the ever exciting Chuck E Cheese. Who else would take them there! I do love going there when all the other kids are in school. Skee-ball if FUN!

Friday a.m. we headed further south. If you've ever headed south, toward Atlanta from the north, you surely would have seen signs for Ruby Falls. Years ago they were painted on the tops of barns through the countryside. Well, now they are fancy billboards. Of couse, you have to stop at Ruby Falls on a road trip. A good cave tour is part of one's understanding of the world.

Off to Cumming, GA: We left Ruby Falls close to traffic time so navigated via cell phone with my sister in GA who knew what roads NOT to take. We met her for dinner at a Japanese Bistro. The kid who would eat NOTHING green or strange, now eats Sushi and asparagus at 40. There is always hope for the future, isn't there. We spent a few great days visiting with them, going there church on Sunday. They attend Brownbridge Community Church, which is a satelite church of Northpoint Church in Alpharetta. It is like many other mega churches, including great worship music, but has a screen projected image of Andy Stanley FULL SIZE for the sermon. It's almost convincing. They love it and it was a great message, so it must work. An auditorium of people were there hearing how tithing could grow their faith and that spending just a few minutes with God in the morning could change their world. I can't argue with that.

Heading home: We headed home via Cave City, Kentucky. They didn't want to see any more caves and were homesick for dad. We drove 12 hours over 2 days, the only trying part was the boring familiar drive up US 31 from Indianpolis home.

We didn't do any of the planned work I'd arranged for the car, but after I saw what they were absorbing everywhere we went, I didn't want to spoil their education with school work.
For those of you who fear traveling with your kids (empathy included for travelling with infants), once they get in the car it becomes their little world and they didn't really even balk about 4-5 hours between sites and adventures. If money were limitless, we'd probably never be here... but it's not, so for now, somethings will have to be learned from me and our huge library of books.