Minnesota Children’s Museum

Andy and I packed up lunches and the boys into the car and were on the road to St Paul, MN, by 8:30 to visit the Minnesota Children’s Museum.  It’s about a 90 minute drive from Kasson, and is located in downtown St Paul.  I’m sure glad we had my GPS along to get us there.  Both going and coming back home were made really easy with my “Australian Mate’s” directions.  :)  (I chose the Australian male voice for my GPS over that cranky American female…haven’t named him yet, though :))
We were able to park about three blocks away for $5 for the day.  That’s pretty reasonable considering the location.  I couldn’t believe how jam packed it was with people on a Tuesday morning!  Of course, I forgot that this is May, and kids and teachers are tired of school, so every district in the area has scheduled field trips to the museum.
The museum is four stories high.  This is the view from the second story.  This is a great museum for kids with lots of hands-on activities.
Right now they have a special dinosaur exhibit on display.  Joey and Seth interacting with the displays.
Joey especially enjoyed digging for dinosaur bones, complete with safety goggles.  :)  The bones are hidden under chips made of recycled auto tires.
Here they both are helping to “hatch” some dinosaur eggs in a nest.
Then we went to the little town area (can’t remember the official name of it).  It had all kinds of things for kids to do.  There was a grocery store, restaurant, city bus, uniform store, and several other venues where kids could simulate doing things.  Everything is built to a child’s size except the bus. 
Seth especially enjoyed “driving” the bus. 

There were many more exhibit areas than I can cover here.  As I said before, a great place to take kids, or grandkids.  It was a very enjoyable day for all of us.

On the way home, we had a slight problem at a gas station.  Andy had left the motor on (with AC) as he filled the car.  When he went in to pay the bill, I smelled something burning.  So, I shut off the engine and got out as smoke began billowing out of the engine!  As Andy approached from paying the gas bill, I told him about the smoke and we both got the kids out of the car and I took them off a safe distance.  It turned out that the radiator had boiled over producing the smoke.  Thanks to some local folks, we were able to get the car to a repair shop that was close by.  After about an hour standing out in the boiling heat, I took the boys back to the gas station to take advantage of their air conditioning, and to get everyone an orange push-up to cool us down.  Eventually, we got things taken care of and were on our way back to Kasson.  As we left the gas station, all the adventures of the day took their toll on the young ones, and they napped all the way home.  I would have like to join them.  I was pooped.  :)  We didn’t dare run the AC on the rest of the drive home because of what the mechanic had told us.  It was a hot and sultry drive back.

When I got back to the rig, the temperature inside was 96*!  Ugh!  Emma had spent the day in Andy’s fenced back yard, so I joined her as it was way too hot to be inside of the rig.  :(  Eventually, a storm front moved through with rain, so the temp is now down to a much more comfortable 82* inside the rig.  It should be a little easier to sleep tonight.  I can’t wait to get that new AC switch!

The biggest surprise of the day was that I suddenly had DISH satellite reception tonight.  I don’t know how that suddenly happened, but I’ll take it!

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy