We had a great day at the museum and you can't beat the price! It is $2 for adults and $1 for kids!!! $6.00 for all of us! We got there right at 10 am when they opened. It was practically empty, and we got to take our time and enjoy everything at our leisure. We left at noontime to go out and have a picnic lunch on the grounds. The weather was perfect...just a light breeze to enjoy our sandwiches and chips with.
We were all really excited to see the museum, but no one more so than Nathan. Here he is ready to enter, notebook and really fat marker in hand to take notes. He was very serious about it all.
We all really enjoyed the section with the animals...we told the kids that it was like I SPY and that they really had to look hard to find the animals. At first we were doing the "I see an owl. Can anyone else find the owl". I think that we only had to do that three or four times before they got better at than we were. Below is a "chipmunk in burrow". Yes, the chipmunk has its paw on its head. I think that it can't believe that it is stuck in a hole in a museum with people looking at it day in and day out. Or it could be because there is a cobweb in his burrow and he is embarrassed to show it off in such a state. You just never know with chipmunks.
No, she is not trying to eat it...Amelia just thinks that the baby moose is the cutest thing that she has ever seen!
The kids really liked the "Touch Table". They had skulls from deer, coyote, and a red fox, different birds eggs, and lots of pelts from different animals. There were prints from red fox, and there was a snake skin in a tube, and Amelia's favorite, the top shell of a turtle. The docent informed her that the turtle shell is made from the same material as our fingernails. Nathan refused to touch the skunk pelt (he thought it might be smelly). He really liked the red fox skull...here he is showing it off with a much more serious expression than he had had on his face for the past five minutes, what with all the growling and snapping of jaws....
Amelia really liked the hummingbird egg, and couldn't believe how small it was and thinks that baby hummingbirds must be smaller than baby quail. Notice the loon egg just above the humming bird egg....wicked cool.
Right near the touch table was a wall of pelts and skins from different animals. Amelia was REALLY good at figuring out what each pelt was. Nathan's favorite was the bat.
This is an old-fashioned lawn sprinkler...everyone thought that was neat and informed me that I must take a picture of it...so here it is!
Throughout the museum we found a lot of things that we see in Grammie and Pop's house, like an old-fashioned coffee grinder and a hand-crank apple peeler.
This is a "hand agitator" washing machine that you got to play with. Chris and the kids really got a kick out of this. It was part of new exhibit....basically homes in Maine through the ages. It was a really neat exhibit. There were sections with old games that kids played, different kitchens from different decades....there was a living room set-up from the 1960's that I would have loved to have had the chairs from. Definitely worth the price of admission!
Nathan thought that the section with the ship was really cool. He insisted that I take a picture of him in front of the model. Notice the "thumbs up" sign....so cute!
This was a toy train engine in a "touch box" right near the entrance and the full-sized train engine. Everyone enjoyed touching it.
Nathan took notes about the "sPaRK ARREstoR" on the big train. He was quite facinated and insisted I take a picture of it even though I was sure that it wouldn't come out.
This tiger sculpture is in the library. Before you get into the museum, you can look down through the windows and see it.
This is in the entrance to the museum. Amelia thought that it would be really scary to fly in it.
This is the Samantha Smith statue that stands to the left of the entrance to the museum. Amelia decided to shake the bears paw, while Nathan decided to use his hand to suck the bears' brains out. Sigh.
At the end of our time at the museum, we went into the library to get a silent close-up view of the tiger sculpture. There were a number of very, very quietly whispered "Wow"'s to be heard from the two of them.
We ended the trip with everyone hopping into the car, rolling down the windows and then saying "Ow! Hot!" as we tried to rest our arms on the door. Ah! Summer is here!
Her patience was rewarded with a Sun Fish that she took off of the hook herself! She made sure that she wouldn't get any spines in her hands by using the towel. Smart girl!
She soon realized that Nathan had caught a trout below the dam, so she decided to try her luck there. She was rewarded with three trout!! Nathan caught two!
Intently baiting his own hook.....
This was our reward when we got home....meat, meat and more meat!!
