Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Jumping Deer Museum

The weather is getting nicer.  And I need to get practicing getting out with the stroller.  As we'd been driving by the Zoo last week, Piper had asked to stop at the Jumping Deer.  It took me a minute to realize what she was talking about... she wanted to go to the Eiteljorg.  Ah, we often call it the Cowboys and Indians Museum, because that's what Chris and Sam called it.  


But the Jumping Deer Museum is fairly appropriate too.   


Piper and Jacob were thrilled to go up and see the statues up close.  
She would have really loved it in the summer, when the water would have been running.  The deer look like they are jumping a stream in the summer.  Still, she was pretty happy.  


I like to take a picture by the Indian at the door when I visit.  
Our membership expires next month, and we will probably not be renewing.  Jacob is still pretty young to appreciate everything.   So we can take some time off from it.   Still, they let me cruise through the Gold exhibit.  It was a neat exhibit about mining for Gold, and some of the art and artifacts from that era.  Even the photography was hypnotizing.   

As a reward for their good behavior, I took them downstairs to the play area, and let them run wild.


They immediately started playing 'house' in the Indian hogan house.  On the inside they don't look much different, than when they are bopping around my living room.  


Then the kids tried playing the dulcimer.  But they kept hammering with the wrong ends.


This visit, there was a new exhibit for the kids, to coincide with the Gold Rush exhibit upstairs, there was a place for he littles to pan for gold.   They had sandy bottom 'creek', and the water was gently running, like a stream.  The kids actually were pretty successful at reaching down and grabbing some silt from the bottom in their pans.  That's all I thought there was to it, and they were perfectly content with that.  Until I literally saw something hit the light!  I wonder if that's what it felt like.   I didn't expect to see any hint of something sparkly.  But it was!   I fished it out, and indeed there were little 'gold' flecks.  


Fool's Gold. 
But still Awesome.  I made sure to point some out so each of the kids saw that they actually got some gold.  I was pretty impressed, what a great idea for an exhibit for the kids.  


The littles had fun splashing around there for a while.   
And they didn't get soaked because they had aprons to protect their outfits. 
Good call! 


Then the little cowpokes took to the ponies!


But the biggest hit by far was the Stagecoach.  


Now that Jake is old enough to do some climbing in and out, that's really all he wanted to do.  
It's hard to capture a moving target.   


Peek-a-pipes! 


After they played for an hour or so all over that room, I asked if they wanted some snacks.  So we went and had a lunch just outside the Eiteljorg, and I had these two yahoos demanding I feed them over and over, like giant baby birds.   Cheese, roast chicken deli meat, squeezy yogurt, and fish crackers - the lunch of champions.  


Oh, and I also want to point out, that downtown was getting all spruced up for hosting the Final Four.  They put this HUGE bracket banner on the Marriot right across the street from the Eiteljorg.  Very cool.  I do so love my town.  And I have a good time sharing it with the littles.  

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