Greensboro Science Center

This past weekend we traveled to Richmond VA, for the UCI World Cycling Championships. Knowing that length of trip (6 hours) would test Callen's limits in the car, we decided to split the trip and drive to Greensboro on Friday and the remainder of the way to Richmond on Saturday. We left after Doug got off work on Friday and made our way to Greensboro. Cal has traveled a decent amount, but the only times he has stayed in hotel rooms has been when he was much younger. (He prefers to stay in a tent!) He was so excited about staying in a hotel! He loved riding the luggage carts and thought jumping on the bed was amazing. He was going strong until 11:00! Mom and dad were not going as strong and passed out as soon as he fell asleep!

Why is he always a blur in pictures?!

One reason we stopped in Greensboro (other than being half way between Greenville and Richmond) is that we looked ahead of time and saw the Greenville Zoo has reciprocal rites with the Greensboro Science Center as part of your annual membership. We thought this would be a great place to stop and explore for the morning before getting back on the road to Richmond. The Science Center has an aquarium, museum, and zoo all at the same facility. We didn't know what to expect, so we decided ahead of time we would visit the aquarium since Cal goes to the Greenville Zoo and The Children's Museum often. Once there, we realized that each component was fairly small, and easy to visit all of them in one day. We still opted to walk through the aquarium first. Cal loved watching the sea cats as they were climbing and walking throughout their exhibit. He looked at the penguins for about a second before he moved on to the giant tanks. He took some more interest in all the fish, but overall didn't seem to care too much about watching the sea life (he is much more hands on if you didn't already know that!!!). We watched a scuba diver give a talk in the large tank and this held his interest for a few minutes (we kept telling him it was Uncle Scuba!), but before long we were on to the next area.

He liked looking at the sting rays but had no part in wanting to touch them

The museum is very interesting. There are many educational opportunities for the kids with classroom talks, video presentations, and interactive exhibits. However, much of this area was for older kids and we found ourselves playing in several themed rooms that had educational opportunities but also play areas for the smaller kids. Cal loved being captain of the ship and pushing all the sound effect buttons in the submarine. The play food and food truck best captivated his attention and he was sure to give everyone a 'nack' before heading out to the zoo.

This is much like the ball tubes at the Children's Museum except that the balls or scarves put into the chutes come flying out above your head!

Waiting for the balls to come out and land on dad!

 

Safari exhibit

The zoo is great. The number of animal exhibits is smaller compared to the Greenville Zoo. However, they have a number of attractions that we don't have here, so it was nice to see different species of animals. Also, they have much larger open spaces for their animals. It was really neat to see the Gibbon monkeys walking around in an area that might really simulate their home environment. The tigers even seemed to have much more space than the lions at the zoo here. It was really nice to see the open areas for the animals to live in; it made it feel less like a zoo. 

Watching the monkeys

Go Tigers!

 

Watching the lemurs

Perhaps one of the coolest things the Science Center has to offer is their Sky Wild attraction. It is a separate fee, but it is a tree top adventure park with various ziplines, rope climbs, and obstacles that looks awesome. This would definitely be something we would like to take Cal back to when he is older. There were entire families out on the course together having a great time encouraging one another and helping each other through difficult areas. 

We were very impressed with the Science Center. One neat thing they do there is they have teen volunteers that man each of the exhibits. They learn about the animals and the exhibit, and are there to answer any questions you may have. They offered advice on where to go in the center as well as answered our questions about the animals. What a great way to get kids involved as well as help the patrons learn more about the zoo and its animals. 

On to Richmond...