So Long Denver

After two fun weeks in Denver, as we were preparing to hit the road, we discovered some hitchhikers.

Yep, a little mama bird made her nest in our hitch. We had no choice but to 

relocate it to the nearest tree with her watching us. Hopefully she was ok with that.  

Since the kids had stopped napping, they became cranky little things and for the first time started irritating each other in the car. They were still rear facing (yes still, because it is THE SAFEST way to travel), and seated right next to each other. Well all of a sudden we started hearing complaints of, "she's touching my seat", "his foot is on my seat" and so on. Well after a couple weeks of that, Daddy demanded that it was time to turn them and separate them. We ordered brand new seats to be delivered to Grandpa's house and paid less than half price, woohoo! So here we are with the old seats turned forward for the drive to Ohio.

Of course now they complain that their legs hurt from hanging off the seat. 

Oh well, there's no more fighting and they are very content with their new view!

 

I research the zoos and museums that work with our membership, and use those as good stops to break up the driving on travel days. Our first stop was in Hays, Kansas at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, part of Fort Hays State University. We were pleasantly surprised by all this museum had to offer and we ended up spending a few hours discovering it all.

This 14 foot long Xiphanctinus was fossilized with another 6 foot long fish in it's belly, right here in Kansas! Pretty incredible find!

They have a large collection of live rattlesnakes featuring 22 different species! Each has detailed info including a picture showing their typical coloring along with their lightest and darkest variation. I hadn't realized each one's coloring can very so widely. Asher loves snakes, so this was a fun exhibit for him.

And they have animatronic dinosaurs! 

Asher has been asking to see some of these since we left Vegas and their Natural History Museum behind. While in Vegas he would be so excited to see them, but then would get scared. This time he was nervous and kept his hands over his ears, but he didn't run from the room when they roared and moved, so that's a big improvement.

Just when we thought we had seen everything, we found The Discovery Room. 

It was packed full of all kinds of miscellaneous items from playthings like puppets 

for the kids to play with, to skulls, to a live bat- in a display, not loose or anything. 

We could have spent a few more hours in that room alone! 

A couple hours up the road, we figured Milford Lake was a good place

 to stretch our legs and we were right. Kansas has some beautiful lakes.

And then back into the truck to drive thru the plains of Kansas....

with their windmills and farmland and not much else.