Necessary Roughness

In between visits to the clinic for my daughter Monday and Tuesday, we visited the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Great Lakes Science Museum.

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History featured Sue, one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons ever exhumed. This skeleton was found in South Dakota and is larger than a COTA bus. The dinosaur exhibit had some other interesting exhibits, such as what vision might have been like in the Triceratops and in the T. Rex. Another section of the museum had skeletons of the wooly mammoth. We were able to go into an outdoor aviary and see a falcon, an owl, an otter, a couple of vultures, and other animals. The otter was trying to line his nest and stay warm in his exhibit. Good luck with that, in Cleveland.

In the basement of the museum was an activity center, where one could do puzzles, dig out a dinosaur footprint, and make dinosaur do-not-disturb door hangers. There were also a tarantula, a toad, and an African cockroach — all under glass, thankfully.

The exhibits were enjoyable, too. The kids really enjoyed an exhibit where golf balls were dropped onto a piece of marble that a person changed the angle of to hit various targets.

Another cool game involved race cars that sat on long grooved rods. Spin the rods, and the cars moved. One rod was shorter than the other, but the shorter rod had tighter grooving, so one had to spin it faster.

The kids liked the Plastics Center, where there was a 4′-tall Connect Four game, a “moon walk”, some computers, and a 20′-long ball pit that had a basket suspended above. Balls were put in the basket by means of either an air cannon or a conveyor belt. When the basket was full, a lever was pulled, and all the balls fell back into the pit.

We enjoyed both museums, but since there was a lot of reading material the kids will like it better a couple of years from now.

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