OMSI in Portland

Today we went to OMSI. It was a madhouse. There were bus loads of school children everywhere. Some of them were animals, some of them were misbehaving. Some of the adults supervised them well, others did not. Overall, I'd rather have been there when it was less crowded. Not to self; next time wait until 2pm to go to the Science Museum in June.

We noticed that everywhere we go, Portland is covered in Dinosaurs. It's like some kind of cooperative theme or something. Here at OMSI they had a T-rex outside the door and this Pterodactyl flying over our heads in the lobby.

The kids got to dig for dinosaur bones. One of mine said "There's no dinosaur bones here, just these stupid pieces of wood." Well, those were supposed to "be" the bones. I guess there's no fooling her. And to top it off, she says; "And it's not even real dirt, it's like rubber." I'm thinking it's recycled tires, like the kind they use on playgrounds. Poor thing, she's seen a real Mammoth dig and this was definitely not what she had in mind.

Once she let go of her preconceived notions of what a dinosaur dig looks like, she had fun throwing the bits of rubber at her friends.

OMSI had a physics lab that was a lot of fun. I liked the water table. Kids liked the glass elevator "ride." Husband and I really liked the little exhibit about the world's water supply & clever inventions for de-salinating water and carrying it to remote villages and capturing rainfall for the garden.

We tried taking a family portrait. My camera has issues. I need a new camera. Do you hear that, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, Anyone? I've had this Samsung Digimax 301 for almost 5 years now and I'm done with it. The flash doesn't always work well and neither does the focus and I'm just plain DONE. Anyway, here's what our family portrait looks like when the camera's timer is failing. Isn't he sexy? No wonder we have so many kids.

Also of interest was the Submarine. There was one parked along the river. Being outside was wonderful, the weather had cleared up. I loved to see blackberries growing wild everywhere, it reminded me of Seattle. The kids found a snail, My oldest had a headache so she wasn't much fun. We ate Tuna sandwiches in the parking lot and went back to the hotel so the kids could swim some more. I wished we had done more sightseeing. I did get to swim, it was so very nice and relaxing. Baby enjoyed the water, so did the other kids.