Day 5 of "Indy" Spring Break

Today was perhaps not the most "productive" of days of our vacation. Things didn't work out quite as well as Bruce would have liked them to...not that anything went wrong, just not too exciting. We started out by leaving our hotel near Columbus, OH, and traveling into Columbus.  We were headed to the Ohio History Center when lo and behold we spied a sign that said "Scrapbook Expo"!  WOWIE ZOWIE!  Upon further exploration...sure enough, there was a scrapbook event, so Bruce and Allison dropped me off there for a couple of hours, and those two went to the History Center.  Two hours was enough to shop for scrapbooking items, when I really don't need anything else, and a lot of it was stamping anyway.  But I certainly enjoyed the diversion.  They enjoyed the History Center too.  Bruce said he was glad he had ALlison along because a lot of it was actually geared toward children, and had he gone by himself, he would have been very disappointed and probably asked for some sort of refund.  Allison said she had a good time.

We ventured further into the city proper of Columbus, and really didn't feel that we found that much. It was a typical capital/goverment based city.  Not a lot of character.  We found a section of the town called "German Village" and it was really very neat. I probably should have tried to get some sort of picture of the buildings. They were all fairly uniform red brick houses that looked like they had been there for many years, with little shops and cafes on corners every couple of blocks.  We stopped at a store that was advertising a huge book sale.  "The Book Loft" or some such thing. They said there were 32 rooms of books for sale, and that was pretty close to accurate I suppose. I actually had to give up after not too long because it was so jam packed. I've never been in anything quite like it.  I really didn't like it. I didn't see a lot of rhyme or reason to it all. I did buy a couple of hardback children's picture books for $5.99, and one for Allison on cats.  I also bought a DVD copy of "Casablanca" which everyone should own for $6.99, so it worth the stop I suppose.  We had coffee and a snack at a nearby cofffee shop.  We then drove...and drove in the rain.  We ended up in an area close to Dayton, and that is where we are staying tonight.  Bruce was feeling a little cruddy about how the day turned out, but he took Allison to the swimming pool at the hotel, and that helped.  Upon research, I found a new type of restaurant to go to for dinner, and that helped too.  It was called Quaker Steak & Lube.  It was a hoot!!!!!


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Day 4 of "Indy" Spring Break

Today we left Marysville, Ohio, and ventured a few miles to the northeast and arrived at Powell, Ohio, the location of the "world famous" Columbus Zoo.  The Columbus Zoo is where the famous Jack Hanna bases home out of.  It was a very nice zoo.  We had a wonderful day to go there. It was overcast when we arrived, wondering if it was going to rain or not, the sun tried to peek out and it was humid. Then later in the afternoon the clouds came back and a nice breeze picked up, and about 4:30, however, the skies broke loose and it started...raining...   yes, while we were still IN the zoo.  We were pretty wet by the time that we made it to the front gate, and bless Bruce's heart but he ran to get the car and drive closer to pick us up.  By the time he arrived at the front, the rain had gotten to just a few little sprinkling drops.  Here, however, are some pictures of our day at the Columbus Zoo. 

I thought this looked cute...it was in an exhibit called "My House" and it was about habitats.  Kids could crawl in and up through a "hole" and it looked like a fox was going to pounce on her.

The polar bear exhibit was a favorite.  First we saw this one out in outdoor area.

Then we went inside to the underwater viewing area, and saw this one "fishing" for a snack or for lunch. Then there were two, so I don't know if this one came in, or if there are actually three polar bears.

In this exhibit, you can stand in this glass enclosed area and look around three sides of you and up above your head in the water, and the fish and the bears are swimming around you basically.  The bears are "catching" and eating fish.

It was funny because the bears would "sit" on the roof of the glass enclosure and eat their fish so we would see some "bear butts" right on top of our heads. :)

I think this was the Puma taking a nap.

I couldn't get a good picture of "Audrey" the soon-to-be mommy otter.  There was a zookeeper there telling us that she was ready to give birth any day now. She has had three litters in the past, and they've all come in March; she has had three babies each of the past three times.  She was swimming up a storm. :)

Black Rhinoceros.

I can't remember what these were...two birds and a deer like animal.....

Oh man, I can't think of this one's name either........

Boa constrictor....ewwwwww

These looked like bats to my unknowing eyes....

but they were...................

Large Flying Foxes!  They are cool! in a creepy way.....

These monkeys were hard to photograph through the glass enclosure.

There were three elephants in this enclosure, and the one behind this front rock looked like a younger one.

Red panda.

A couple of resting tigers.

There were three Lions resting.

The flamingos were cool....until one of them pooped right in front of us.....ewwww

The manatee 'house' was cool, but the water was pretty dark blue so it was hard to see anything in the tank unless they came close to the window.  The manatee didn't come over, but this turtle did....cool!

And finally, the penguins, but I could only find these two....

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Day 3 of "Indy" Spring Break

Today was a "travel" day I guess.  We left Indy and headed east on Hwy 40.We went through several smaller communities, and were planning a mid day stretch at Richmond, Indiana.  According to the Indiana Guide Book there was "Chocolate Trail" and " Antique Alley."  Well, the address that I put into the Garmin actually led us to the parking lot of a Days Inn.  This, after going through the downtown area, that did not look very nice, worn down, and crooked, every which way streets.  Bruce was tired of driving ("road butt") and we drove into Ohio, but it was like, "Uh, it says CHOCOLATE!" so he agreed to turn around and ask for directions at the Visitor's Center we passed.  The two older ladies there were very enthusiastic about their community, so that helped, and it perked up our resolution to try again.  They directed us to a cute chocolatier and bistro where we had lunch (yummy quiche and lobster bisque and a chocolate dessert that was yummy!) and then did a little look around in the historical museum, and shopping in the granddaddy of all toy/teacher shops (http://www.veachstoystation.com/).

We drove on into Ohio a little father, and we ended up spending the night in Marysville, Ohio...kindred spirit of "home".  We shall see where the road takes us today.


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Day 2 of "Indy" Spring Break

So, here we are on our first "full" day of our vacation.  Where does it find Allison and I but nowhere else than a Children's Museum...a behemoth children's museum at that.  I had no idea that the Indianapolis Children's Museum was so massive. My goodness!

I will have to do some study on the funding of the museum. It is by far the best children's museum we have been to, and we have been to small town, small/average city, to large city museums.  The technology in the museum is very high quality, especially for a museum geared toward kids. 

When you first arrive at the museum, you see the picture below.  A HUGE dinosaur, and a baby dinosaur, crashing through the window/wall.  It certainly does catch one's attention. :)

I'm not entirely sure how to describe the layout of the museum.  There is a huge area that you walk into, and then there is a courtyard sort of thing I suppose that has a square "roundabout" ramp area that goes up 4 floors I believe.  We ended up heading down to the lower level, and coming into contact with a glass and color display.  These "balls with stems" are hollow and 'stick' on a form with knobs sticking out of it...holders sort of thing.  You can switch around all sorts of colors and shapes. It is very cool, but didn't hold the attention too long...too much other stuff awaiting.  Above our heads, in the ceiling, is a blown glass design. It's very pretty and the lighting is different - bright colors, but still kinda muted and dark. 

Barbie...    Need I say more?!?!?  This ended up being the highlight of the entire museum visit, perhaps even entire vacation!   This was an exhibit that was scheduled to leave March 27 I believe. 

I got really excited when I saw this in a display case....I HAD THIS motor home and fold up chairs!!!!!!

The exhibition was really a big area; there was even a fashion show "runway" and there was a mini-fashion show runway and dressing room for the doll size Barbies.

Although she never mentioned it before this, Allison told me that she wanted to be a hairdresser when she grows up!

Although not too sure at the beginning, she did get into the clothes changing and putting on a fashion show.  To the right in this picture, there were two big cameras fastened on tripods with working flash, and kids would stand behind the cameras and be the 'paparazzi' during the fashion show. 

There were many display cases of different types of Barbies, the history of Barbie, Barbie over the years, and this is an example of the very first Barbie.  How cool it would be to get one of these! 

Another of the temporary exhibits was this LEGO exhibit. It was fun, and she did get into it more than I had initially thought.

It has wheels and it really drives!  There was even a kiosk to take a picture and have it emailed back home; it was cool and we got all the way to having entered our email address, but an error message came back twice that it couldn't connect to system, so...we had to settle for this picture.

And how cool is this?  A life size LEGO car! :)

DINO- exhibit....this was putting a type of gold/bronze silly putty on a dinosaur skeleton part to resemble muscles.....

Now we have entered the Mr. Potato Head exhibit.  It had some very cute things to play and play with. 

I can't totally explain why, but I really liked this one....Mr. Potato Head has a swimming mask on and looks like he is peeking under water...and you can pretend to be underwater with him....:)

I also LOVED this clock. I would really like to have a miniature version of this clock. It's a water clock.  The larger balls on the left fill up with blue water each hour, and the smaller balls on the right fill up with blue water every minute for five minute increments.  So, the time on the clock at this time is like around12:30ish or so...I can't see exactly in this photo, and I don't remember for sure.  It was easy to read and tell in person. 

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