Sometimes science is more fun than pirates

Another almost two-week old story from our adventures in the Twin Cities...

Pirates proved more popular than gross things when we gave the kids the choice between the Science Museum (with special pirate exhibit) and the Children's Museum (featuring Grossology). And so scientists for an afternoon we became.

For AJ, the highlight was seeing the mummified skeleton that's been on display since I was his age. And it still creeps it out far too much to look at with anything more than a passing glance (let alone take a picture of it.)

Instead I focused my lens on other exhibits the kids enjoyed. There's the tornado:

For Sydney (and me, too, I admit) the science of sound waves went right over our heads. But it sure was neat to play the organ.

Once he saw how much fun his sister was having, AJ had to lend his own musical talents.

I have no idea what AJ was looking at here. Based on the words above the magnifying glass, I'm guessing it was prehistoric animal poop. Which would totally be something he'd find fascinating.

We had to buy special tickets for the pirate exhibit, and ended up spending an extra hour at the museum waiting to get in, and in the end it was totally not worth it. It was as if they didn't have enough to tell about pirates, and so they went off on tangents about the slave trade (because one of the pirate ships featured was a captured slave ship) and the failed romance that led one guy to become a pirate, and a whole lot of other topics that didn't interest the kids at all. Show me some pirate treasure or other artifacts recovered from the ocean floor. That's what we were expecting based on the brochure, but it was only a small part of the exhibit. &$#*@^% marketers!

The one kid-friendly part of the exhibit was this guy:

Next to a scene that was supposed to show the kind of bar/tavern where pirates would hang out, an actor taught kids how to play some of the card/dice games that pirates might have played. AJ thought it was pretty cool. And then he was ready to go. I didn't get to see much, because I had another child pulling on my arm, also wanting to leave.