Milwaukee's Discovery World

Discovery World is a fantastically unique interactive museum focusing on music, movement, energy and water.

While the kids explored the cause and effect of mechanics, I snuck away to try out the flight simulator all by myself! It was fun and I called the family over to try it out. Asher and Journey both enjoyed it but crashed pretty dramatically. Daddy was the only one to successfully land his plane.

 Check out this giant hamster wheel for kids! I could use one of these. If only we could mount it to the back of the RV and have the kids generate electricity for us!

The underwater world was incredible, I mean when you take the elevator down and are greeted by fish before the doors even open, you know this is going to be unlike anything you've seen before! 

We walked over and under the fish. Standing over them was a dizzying feeling.

A submarine houses many interactive exhibits. Of course the kids liked the periscope. 

One of my favorites was the digital filleting of a fish. As you move a dial to the right, different parts are exposed to show the anatomy with labels for identification.

We touched live stingrays, sharks and sturgeon fish.

Next we headed upstairs to check out a real boat that rests between the floors of the museum.

This water exhibit was incredible. This chart shows that people in the US use an average of 150 gallons of water A DAY! What?! That is insane. We have a 55 gallon fresh water tank in the RV and that lasts us nearly a week if we use the campground showers. I know I used more water before I worried about running out of it, but 150 gallons a day per person seems outrageous!

One fun way to conserve water is to install a rain barrel, like my aunt and uncle just did. The barrel attaches to your rain gutters and supplies you with free water for your yard, garden, etc.

I'm not sure what I thought happened to sewage, but this is not what I expected. If you don't want to know, you can stop reading here.....
I'm serious....what I'm about to tell you cannot be unseen.....
Still here? Alrighty...
Sewage water (you know what I'm talking about) is "cleaned" thru a multi-step process and then recycled back into the lakes. And where do we get our drinking water....those same lakes! The water is again "cleaned" thru another multi-step process to give us the water we use to drink, wash and bathe in. Traumatized yet? Yah, me too.

It's hard to see in this photo, but this exhibit shows the entire cycle that the water goes thru from beginning to end using real water running thru. It really helps to actually see each step rather than trying to understand it by just reading thru the steps.

Yogi's Jellystone in Wisconsin

We have never been to a Jellystone Park before. It's a Yogi Bear themed camping resort and it really is a fun change for the kids.

Normally stay at a state park campground and are lucky if their amenities include a laundry room. This place has everything, putt putt golf, two playgrounds, a jumping pillow thing, and a water resort- a pool plus a whole kids shallow pool with a playground situated on top of the water. Too bad it was f-f-f-freezing this weekend! It did luckily warm up to a breezy 60 on Sunday, so there was ONE crazy family that swam. (In our defense, the water was heated surprisingly well.)

The first morning the kids got up, dressed and we went over to Yogi's cave to wake him up. Asher and Journey were alarmed by the mass of kids yelling at Yogi, so they held back and decided that they didn't want to get too close to him after all. Asher said, "a man in there, mommy?" Yes, babe.

 It happened to be Halloween weekend at the park, a little weird as it's mid September, but they said, "we celebrate earlier due to the cold weather", ok. The Halloween party kicked off with a costume contest, which required each child to be announced. They both stood there frozen on stage, but they did it and there were no tears, from my kids anyway. After that it was trick or treat time! We were given a map of the campground with the participating sites circled. The kids walked around collecting goodies that they were super excited about....and then something happened. A site was giving out treats to the parents- adult beverages and something they called "pudding shots". And then another site and another. Apparently this is a thing in Wisconsin. It's certainly a way to keep warm while out walking on a chilly night with your kids!

 Once the night grew dark we went thru the not-so-haunted-because-they're-little-kids trail. Even so, I thought WHAT THE HECK WERE WE THINKING! and covered Journey's eyes a few times. They were fully decorated for the scary version that started an hour later, the difference being that people would jump out at you at that one. They were so tired that Journey actually fell asleep in my arms as I carried her to the RV.

After waking up Yogi on Sunday morning, the kids decorated doughnuts while the 

rest of the campers vacated the park. This place is like a ghost town mid week, it's crazy! On the way back to our site, Journey asked to go thru the "scary garden" again (meaning haunted trail), ha!

 The rest of the week we played with the coin-operated "diggie truck", bounced on the giant jumping pillow and played a couple rounds of putt-putt during the week. I only got a club to the face once.

 I think Journey had more fun with this guy than she did playing golf.

Kisses for Yogi. Until next time Mr. Bear.....

Two Rivers, Wisconsin

After setting up the RV, we took advantage of the beautiful day by taking the kids for their first bike ride thru a town, the tiny town of Two Rivers. They did well staying on the sidewalk, watching for cars and walking their bikes across the streets. 

Our walk/ride continued all the way to the beach of Lake Michigan 

where numerous monarch butterflies had taken their final rest.

 When I suggested that we take the kids to their first art museum, my husband thought I was nuts. Two three year olds around very expensive, one-of-a-kind pieces?! I thought it was time, and I had found this neat little place called the Rahr-West that is an art museum inside a 1890s mansion with 13 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms and 6 fireplaces! Pretty cool.

When we arrived, I was relieved to see they are very welcoming to children and even have a child's playroom downstairs. They have backpacks full of art supplies the kids can borrow for use in the playroom during their visit. The kids were excited.

We were impressed with these wood carving sets that were carved from one piece of wood into movable items- balls and chains.

They also gave the kids a scavenger hunt page with photos of different items located in the museum to find. Asher was very good at this. Found the fireplace and the fish.

Journey only marred one priceless work of art, ok, it was a vase-like thing with snowy-glittery stuff glued to the side, which she knocked some off when her little finger brushed it. It was the only thing that didn't have a plaque next to it to tell of it's attributes, so I think it's ok??? Anyway, I swooped her up and ran her directly to the kids' playroom, before anything super tragic happened.

The playroom was perfect. Tables for the kids to open up their backpacks and color, cut and paste til their hearts were content. Books to read in their comfy chairs, toys arranged by type and even a 3D puzzle to keep me, I mean, the kids, busy.
  

We made two trips to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It's a little place, but has some nice animals.  

Asher learned that his "wingspan" is smaller than a red-tailed hawk, but almost the size of a seagull. 

A beautiful Red Golden Pheasant.

This fish rearing pond, built in 1985, recently held 30,000 growing Brown Trout, put here for the chance to grow without the danger of being eaten by larger animals. Half were released into nearby rivers and the other half will be released later this year. Over the years they have grown and released nearly six million fish into the area! Not only are they visible when looking down from the platform, there are underwater cameras that allow you to watch the fish on a tv monitor just under the sign. Asher really enjoyed this.

The kids' favorite though had to be the prairie dogs (ok, maybe not so cool to those who live around these creatures, but hey it's the first time my kids have seen them). There were at least six in the enclosure and it was fun to watch them dig and run into their holes.

By the way both the art museum and zoo are both free, requesting only donations.