Oregon Part 2

Conor was still really busy with his baseball tournament, so that meant the girls and I had another day of nerdery to get to. This time, we decided to check out OMSI - Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  It was awesome - the girls definitely had more fun this day!  Madi had soccer practice that morning, so Livi, Gabi and I continued to play lots of Wii.  Once Madi got back, we all got ready, Jen made us some AWESOME sandwiches for lunch, and we headed over the scary bridge to OMSI.  Our main plan for the day was to check out the submarine tour, go to the CSI exhibit, and check out as many other exhibits as we could!

First up was the submarine tour - this particular submarine was in the film "Hunt For Red October."  I believe it was mostly just in the outside shots, because the man that took us on the tour showed us a still from the movie, and it was very spacious.  Not so much inside the submarine.  It was a tight squeeze, but it was really cool to be able to tour a submarine that held up to 87 crew members at one point.  Jen and I were pretty claustrophobic throughout the tour, but to think about actually being out at sea for months at a time sounds awful.  The tour guide told us that the first submarine ever built was very short, so the crew had to kneel - there was no place to stretch out.  Barf.

Highlights:

* Seeing the Captain's barracks - first stop on our tour.  I thought it was so tiny, only to realize it's pretty large in comparison to most other parts of the sub.

* Rest of the sleeping quarters - It was so small, I don't even know if I would have fit.  What would happen is that 3 men would share 2 beds, and you worked your schedule around that - three 8 shifts in a day, and you slept one of those 8 hour shifts, worked one, and cried during the other shift because you were stuck underwater in an enormous tube with no circulating air and bug juice.  

* Seeing the telescope room - they constantly listen to sonar to decipher between whales, dolphins, and Russian killing machines!  

* The missile room - it's really cold in there.  And scary.  I mostly tuned the tour guide out at this point because I'm pretty sure I was in a room with about 8 live missiles.  Had I listened to him, I would know whether or not these were actually live.  

* Mess room - there were 4 tables that could fit 4-6 crew members, so the sub was very well organized.  Everyone onboard had to know their schedule well.  When to eat, when to sleep, when to work.  Although it seemed to me you couldn't fit more than 30 people in there, the tour guide said they would tend to hold church services on Sundays in there for whoever wanted to go, and when they needed to brief everyone on board, they would bring them all in there.  Again, I stopped listening to the tour guide - there is a very good chance that they would split up the crew of 80+.  I make my own facts.

* Showers - 2 showers. 87 crew members.  Not joking.








Next up we stopped by the CSI exhibit. I have no idea how, but I somehow forgot to take pictures. It was actually pretty cool. They sent you through one of three different "crime scenes" - first you collected evidence, second you worked through your evidence (DNA, bullet frags, everything), and third you came forward with all of your evidence and solved the case. We did it twice, and it was a lot of fun!

Finally, we just sort of wandered and tried to get through as many exhibits as we could - I won't scar you with the few photos I took of the fetus exhibit we saw. It was very fascinating, and only mildly disturbing. They had feti (is that how you pluralize fetus?) from almost every stage from conception to 40 weeks. All the feti had been naturally miscarried and preserved. You can see fingernails as early as 5 weeks. It was pretty crazy.

Other OMSI highlights:
* Madi and Livi using the aging machine

* Seeing an axolotl - seriously, read about them.  Crazy.  Picture below.

* Trying out the hundreds of logic puzzles they had, which gave me anxiety because there was no answer key.  

* The earthquake reenactment room/Bean family dance party

* The green screen/weather report Madi and Livi did

* Checking out the Gemini - a spacecraft used to take two men into space pre-moon walk.

* All the different hands-on activities - it really is a great place to take kids!

This picture needs further explanation. Madi and I kept working on this puzzle for 10+ minutes, and we would always get within one block of finishing the puzzle (6 hexagon color blocks, only one correct placing of the blocks.) Gabi stepped up after we left, and did it under 5 minutes. She's a genius.






After OMSI, we went home and we were pretty pooped! Jon and Jen made another awesome dinner, we played a couple of games, tie-dyed some soccer socks and t-shirts, and crashed. The next morning, Conor had to go back to the tournament and I had a flight to catch at 4:15 to head to Utah, so we crammed as much as we could into the morning. We had breakfast, played some more Wii, and did some more tie-dying because that's just how awesome we are - the girls needed their new school wardrobe. After tie-dying we did an old project we had hoped to be able to do at Birch Bay but ran out of time. It's a project I do with my students for father's day every year, and it was a lot of fun - we decorated pens with clay, they turn out pretty cool.

I had to rush to the airport after that, but I was sad to go. Thank you Jon, Jen and the Super Girls for an awesome trip! I wish it could have been longer, I miss you guys already!