One of my favorite things in the summer is taking family day trips on the weekends. It has been a long time since we have done any real traveling. Having lots of animals has made it difficult for us to go away for more than a day or two. Kenan works long hours during the week, but he usually takes Saturdays off and so we always try to plan something fun to do. We love to visit science museums, state parks and different areas along the blue ridge parkway.
Two weekends ago we headed down to North Carolina to visit the Greensboro science center. We've been here before and always enjoy it. It's about a 2 hour drive, but i decided to pick up a membership so we can visit a few more times over the summer. On the June 29th they will be opening their new Sciquarium so we will be heading back to check it out. One of the neat things about the Greesboro science center is that it is considered both a science museum and a zoo. So the family membership gives us FREE admission to over 300 Association of Science & Technology Centers (ASTC) nationwide. http://astc.org/members/passlist.htm AND free or discounted admission to more than 160 zoos and aquariums worldwide. http://www.aza.org/reciprocity . It's really an awesome deal.
The kids love to explore the inside exhibits. There is lots to look at and learn.
The kids had a blast in the Tornado tunnel. They got to experience what it feels like to be in a tornado with wind speeds of up to 78 miles per hour.
The Animal Discovery zoo is small, but it's still a really nice area to walk through. The tigers have a pretty large area, with big rocks to climb on a creek/pool to cool of in. Often times the tigers tend to hide out up on the rocks, but both of them were very active while we were there. The female was playing i the pool, and the male would come right up to the 'spray zone'. :)
The Javan Gibbons were also extremely active and fun to watch. They were climbing and swinging all over their area just like acrobats. We watched them for a long time. They would chase each other, and swing so gracefully from just a couple of fingers. We also got to see the baby gibbon being bottle fed inside the animal nursery.
There are chicken, guineas and peacocks wandering freely around the zoo. This male peacock would randomly yell out and then display his feathers proudly. He put on quite a show.
He put on quite a show. i am always amazed at how truly beautiful they are.
We always enjoy our visit here, and right across the back parking lot is a really nice park. There is a lake, with paddle boats, picnic shelters and play grounds. We always spend some time playing here before we go.
After all of the craziness of the last couple months it is nice to fall back into our summer routine. We have a lot of lazy days during the week spent in the garden, the woods or down at the creek. The lazy days are my favorite part of summer, but weekend trips are a fun change.
This past weekend we used our science pass to visit the Science museum of West Michigan, and next weekend we are heading to the Knoxville Zoo and the Hand's on Children's museum in Johnson city, TN. There are so many new and fun places to visit that are only a few hours away.
We are looking forward to a fun filled summer!
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