Where the Streets Have No Name

Day 4:

OMSI was fantastic! It was a hands-on kids museum very much like the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Two of our party went to see the Body Works exhibit, a strange (yet surprisingly popular) show comprised of displays of human bodies stripped of their layers. Didn't know you had layers? This is Gray's Anatomy (the book, not the TV show) for real body geeks. They showed, or so they tell me, bodies in action poses and allowed you to see muscules nerves and other inner body workings. A horor movie villain will be born of this - mark my words. As one who prides himself on being able to handle anything with relative detatchment, I simply declared myself chicken and declined.

My family took in two planetarium shows. The first was a laser show. I was old enough to remember when Lazerium first started in San Francisco and how everyone thought it was such a cool thing. The show left me feeling like I was playing the 80's vector game "Battlezone" when everyone else was playing Halo 3.

The second was a Nova episode on Black Holes. Black Holes and other space phenomena have a special place in my heart, and therefore in the hearts of my two children. Think of Tom Selleck reading Sports Illustrated in Three Men and a Baby. Just replace talk of boxing with that of gravity wells and Einstein's theory of General Relativity.

The hands-on part of OMSI was a scientists and engineer's playground. There was a chemistry lab, complete with eye protection and stations that took you through experiments that changed colors. There was a physics lab with a huge van de Graff generator.

The main hall was filled with just an assortment of things that were just plain fun. The bigger children (read: over 30) gravitated towards the pressurized two-liter bottles simulating rocket launches. There was an encolsed area full of high-speed air vents, tubing and small foam balls where you were supposed to invent things to launch the balls into baskets hanging from the ceiling. I spent most of the time shooting the balls at children. All in hopes of bouncing them into the baskets, of course.

Highlights:
1. My first espresso in days. I have at least two a day and my own machine at home.
2. Night time temperatures in the 50s. As one member of our version of the Donner party put it "last night was not as death defying as the first."
3. Our first day without heavy driving, rest stops or fast food.
4. Seeing my daughter really get into the exhibits. She's not declared herself "too cool" to do things, but has been definitely shading her perferences away from science though it's one of her best subjects. Taking her out of her element seemed to allow her just be herself again.

Little Quirks:
1. Apparently the Adult Entertainment Industry is big around Portland. The stores were plentiful and some were quite large and tastefully done.