Next we spent a day in Salt Lake City hanging out at the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum and the Clark Planetarium.
The sculpturesque thing below was the younger boys' favorite at the Children's Museum. I think it was called the "Bee Hive" and it was full of colored plastic balls which could be sent through networks of plastic tubing that sucked up in one spot and blew out in another. There were also other interesting contraptions in which to move the balls around, and ways to gather them, move them, and dump them.
I think "Bee Hive" was a pretty good name for it.
Check out all these purty gurls that Junior hooked up with!
This place had a lot of really cool things for the younger kids, and some cool things for the older kids, too, but it seemed to mostly cater to the younger crowd.
We rode Trax around just for fun.
The Planetarium had plenty of interesting exhibits to explore.
I'd say this contraption was the coolest thing in both the Children's Museum and the Planetarium.
This is how the Clark Planetarium describes it on their website (here):
NEWTON'S DAYDREAM
"Newton's Daydream," an audio-kinetic sculpture by renowned artist and sculptor George Rhoads, is the newest permanent exhibit at the Clark Planetarium.
The two-story tall sculpture combines an intricate maze of moving balls with bells, drums and other noisemaking obstacles to create a whirring visual and auditory palette. "Newton's Daydream" is installed inside the Planetarium's main lobby and will be the focal point for all visitors.
"Whirring visual and auditory palette"? Love the phraseology.
It was really difficult to take decent pictures of it because it was so huge and the lights reflected in annoying ways on the glass. I highly recommend going there just to experience this thing. I could have watched it for hours...if there had been a comfy chair.
Luckily, there was a comfy chair in the dome theater where we watched "Violent Universe". I must say Brandon and I were disappointed in the dome theater movie. We both slept through it and the boys said it was "okay". I had wanted to see it because I thought a dome theater sounded kind of cool (and it was). But it turned out that it was only a half hour long, kind of a low budget film and we paid the same price we would have paid for a feature length professional movie in the IMAX. I'm just letting you know, in case any of you want to go...
Coming up next...the Salt Flats!
