Indianapolis, Day 6

 Thursday, July 14 was day 6 of our Indianapolis adventure.  For the afternoon, 8 of us piled in the SUV and headed to the Children's Museum.  This is the world's largest children's museum and a "must-see" if you're ever in Indianapolis.  Lou took Rob and I there in 2003, but a lot had changed.  The above picture was actually taken on the way back from the zoo, as the way we went to the museum totally missed the front.

This picture below shows that these large fellows really do go through the glass wall!  Okay, I know it's dark, but trust me!

 I couldn't find evidence that these fellows were also inside, but we didn't see everything there either.

Upon entering from the parking garage, there is already a lot to see before getting through the turnstiles or into the exhibits.

 This dude is from the Transformers movie; I assume he's a real, live, full size character?

This wasn't the best picture to show the detail, but this picture (and several others) are made entirely from jelly beans!!

Lou's family comes to the museum a lot, but living in the city, they have the luxury of coming for only a few hours at a time.  We got there rather late, and the museum closed at 5pm, so we had only a few hours to try to please 4 kids (and two guest adults, LOL).  As soon as Hugh saw there was a dinosaur exhibit, he HAD to see it.  He was a huge dino freak as a kid, and has only seen one other dino exhibit that I can recall (Toronto Zoo).  The girls in the group were not too thrilled, but it was still interesting and they kept themselves busy.  We kept losing the adult men though!

 There was a neat area where you could dig for fossils.  It looks like loose pebbles, but it's actually ground up rubber that gets compacted (like at many playgrounds, for the paths).  It was hard work chiseling out those bones!

There is a real working lab in the dino exhibit (behind glass).  This is an actual triceratops skull!  At certain times you can talk to paleontologists!

The one thing I really remembered from our 2003 trip was the vintage carousel.  I told Meg about it and we HAD to make sure to do that!

 There is a large area devoted to an exhibit about Egypt.  There was lots to interest the adults, and lots to keep the kids entertained (and educated).

 Who wouldn't want to pose on a life-size model of a Nile crocodile?

The newest exhibit is National Geographic's  "Treasures of the Earth".  It starts with a fun elevator ride, and then you can explore three areas...China's Clay Warriors, an Egyptian mystery tomb, and a shipwreck believed to be Captain Kidd's.  In this picture the kids are exploring the shipwreck.

I wish we could have had more time at the museum.  Luckily, the gift store stays open a little longer as we had promised the kids they could do some shopping.  They all picked out some nice things, although it was hard to keep to their budgets!

I highly recommend this museum if you're in Indiana.  It's not too busy, although I suppose camp groups could change that but there's so much to explore that I'm sure there's room for every one.   I really liked the miniature houses exhibit, and we never even made it into some of the exhibits!  Two trips, if you can do it, would be the way to go.