People, Paleontology, and Plants

Today we took the long drive down to Austin. To some of you eighty some miles and almost two hours of driving may not seem like a very long time. I challenge that you've never made that drive with a nephrostomy complete with sewn on plastic wedge in your back. Matt drove, the kids were bored, and I twisted and squirmed more than they did. We went to the Natural History Museum at the university in Austin.

 The kids have been begging to go to the "dinosaur museum" for quite sometime and this is as close as its getting as long as we're in Fort Hood.

 Just outside the building there were some dinosaur bone looking...things; the kids had fun playing around them.

 At the front entrance there was a sabre tooth tiger. Liam climbed under posed and said, "quick take my picture". So I did. Pretty cute.

 The entrance of this edifice takes you directly to the second floor. The gift shop and a guard is all that is to be found there. If you venture down to the basement or first floor you will find an assortment of bones. Very few actually complete skeletons are on display but a fine array of jumbled ones are easily found.

 On the third floor was the hall of wildlife. They had a few stuffed Texas natives (of the animal variety), and some fish in formaldehyde bottles that I found vaguely disturbing.

 The fourth floor was devoted to evolution and weirdly enough HIV. They had a giant three foot model of an HIV virus and many kid designed table mats (at least that's what they looked like) that had informational on HIV. I found it a little odd, and the kids found it boring. We stopped at Chuy's after the natural history museum as it had been recommended by my sister, Becky. It was pretty tasty and the delicious salsa required about three lemonades to put out the oral fire. Next we headed over to the Zilker Botanical Gardens.

 It was humid and misty with a bit of drizzle. That sounds chilly but although we started out with coats (to stay dry) we quickly shed them as the temperature was in the mid seventies.

 We learned some time ago when Cyndie, Gary, and Ingrid visited that this was not stroller friendly so Miles got to walk the whole way. Miles is afraid of plants touching him. We had a few tantrums and a few desperate screams for mom or dad to save him (a bush leaned perilously over the path), but he did pretty well. In the above picture you can check out my totally awesome new running shoes.

 In the back ground of this you can see the skyline of Austin. It is obscured by mist, but blow up the picture and you'll be able to pick it out.

 The Zilker garden has an array of delightful gardens. It has a bamboo forest, rose garden, wooded trails, a prehistoric garden, an herb garden, and plenty of others. We enjoyed strolling through the green shrubs, trees that are just beginning to flower, and the early bloomers of the flowers.

 Ian loved the large butterfly benches. When he tried to jump off the back his shoe caught in it and he went flying. Luckily he was okay, but he did tell me that it was a bad idea to jump off of butterflies.

By the time we got back to the car Ian and Miles were begging to go home. Miles fell asleep in the parking lot. Ian was out before we got to the freeway. Liam had to be forcibly kept from waking them up on the way home. We had a great time and feel it was an excellent way to kick off Spring Break.