2014 Family Vacation: Part 1, Science
It’s been more than three months since we returned from our week in Los Angeles in February. It was magical in all kinds of ways. I wish I’d written about it sooner, but life has been so complex and full.
We started with a trip to the ScienCenter in L.A.
It’s a beautiful museum.
We got to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour in person! We knew it would be cool, but we didn’t realize how moving it would be to be in the presence of a real spaceship! It completed 25 missions into space, including the first service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and the first mission to add a U.S.-built component to the International Space Station.
I cried when I saw the photo of the Challenger crew. I remember exactly where I was when I learned of the disaster as a child.
We also saw an IMAX movie about the International Space Station. Such an enormous achievement! It gives me some hope for humanity. We learned a lot about how the astronaut/scientists live aboard the station, and the work they’re doing there. We learned that the Russians have a very sweet and simple tradition. They honor each cosmonaut with the planting of a tree. (Google “cosmonaut grove” or “cosmonaut trees” to see some cool photos.)
We also got to visit the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, just across the campus, which has a great dinosaur exhibit. And we caught a gem and mineral exhibit too.
There’s a hallway where you can walk past the paleontologists in a lab, working on fossils. Very cool!
The Natural History Museum also has those weird taxidermied animal dioramas, with full-scale animals set in scenes depicting their natural habitats. They are fascinating and strange at the same time.
And we caught a gem and mineral exhibit there, too. Asher really loves the crystals.
This was just our first full day in LA. The next three days we spent at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure park.
