NC Museums - Natural Sciences and Political

The kids slept like logs all night long. They woke up at 8 am. I had slipped out at 7 am to shower and wash my hair. We drank orange juice and ate the ridiculous number of snacks they brought with them. They loved the camper, really enjoyed “camping,” and wanted to come back.

We got lost again driving back to Raleigh, so missed our promised 10 am return. (On a side note, the car turned over 8,000 miles on our drive to Raleigh). We planned to go to the North Carolina Museum of Natural

Sciences. But first we were all hungry. We decided to look for a non-chain restaurant downtown. On our drive to the Museum parking lot, we spotted the Oakwood Restaurant, and decided to give it a try. It was another inspired random find! They had Cuban and Argentin-ian food, so not the same old thing. The waitress was fabulous! I had pulled pork with this special house-made hot sauce that I wanted to buy. It came with fried plantains and some spicy green beans. Grant had picadillo (the 2 “ll”s are pronounced as a “j”) – ground beef, green olives, onions and peppers in a tomato sauce. He pronounced it excellent. Mine was too. We had the waitress, who was superb, take a couple of photos of the four of us.

Then we went to the Natural Sciences Museum – to the Extreme Mammal special exhibit. On the way up, we checked out the skeleton of a whale they had suspended from the 2nd floor ceiling. The mammal exhibit was very well done and all of us learned some new stuff. It was some reading, which Daddy did for the kids, and a lot of hands-on activities. Here is a short 35 second video. One display encouraged you to put your finger on a wheel and the screen would exhibit how animals move – whale, bat, dolphin, tiger, kangaroo, etc. The kids really liked that one. They showed a replica of a grass-eating dinosaur tooth that the kids could rub (the tooth, not the dinosaur). One display consisted of 4 boards with 4 animals’ scat (resin), their real fur, and a plaster foot print caste. You could rub the fur and compare you hand size to a bear, raccoon, and 2 others. That was popular with Naima and Nasir. They especially liked that Daddy’s hand was bigger than the black bear’s hand. We were there for over an hour – maybe closer to two hours. I bought each of the kids an endangered beanie baby stuffed animal at the Museum store.

We saw some of their regular exhibits on the way out and they were fun too. We took photos in the courtyard. Then Grant suggested that we explore the State Capitol across the street. They had a lot of old, both Civil War and American Revolutionary War statues on the lawn. Inside, this 1840 Capitol is only used as a museum – they built a new, larger Capitol building in 1961. It was fun to see how much has changed and how much as stayed the same with legislatures since the early 1800s. Their Committee rooms (4 of them) were the size of cloak closets – and in roughly the same location – just outside the Chambers. They had one desk set up with all the accoutrements that the typical Senator would have at at his desk – top hat, top coat, spittoon, quill pen, law books, etc. It was very well presented. We went out to the rotunda and took some photos. A nice stranger took photos of all 4 of us.

While Naima and I were waiting for Daddy to get out of the restroom in the Museum, we decided that ice cream would be restorative. When Daddy came back he said he had the very same thought! We picked up Mommy at home and went to a little roadside Ice Cream Lodge. Tisha & I had butter brickle, Grant had praline pecan, and the kids had chocolate. Hand-made and good!

When we got home, Grant had to go to work as a grocery store security guard at 6 pm. He suggested that I might want a nap since I had told him I was tired. I slept for over 3 hours. I really was tired!

I spent the night at their house. The kids and I watched TV; they called it a slumber party. Tisha went to sleep early because she had to go into work at 4 am. Nasir is a little ADHD and spent most of the time hopping and dancing around in front of the TV. Naima did a “packet” (i.e. homework) on Daddy’s TV tray. Daddy called about 10:30 and ordered the kids to bed. I worked on my blog and downloading photos for a little while before going to bed. Tisha has the guest bedroom set up like a Hawaiian tropical retreat. It was very welcoming.