You're About to be Redirected to the New Home of Ground Control to Major Mom: 8/8/10

Friday, August 13, 2010

Fontenelle Splashground

Today Shannon and I took our boys to this new "splashpark" that opened 2 weeks ago in North Omaha. What a fun, FREE, way to spend a hot summer afternoon! School starts Monday!

Since the original post this afternoon I've had a chance to add more commentary about this place. The City of Omaha has built several of these "Splashgrounds" around the city and they're a great time for the boys. Papillion has one, but Bellevue has none (hint hint!)

Today the boys spent nearly 3 hours at the park -- then the horseflies started attacking and the boys were happy to go. Shannon and I sat under a tree in the shade and had a good old fashioned chatfest.

This particular one was intriguing: there's this innocent looking post stationed near the entrance to the fenced area -- you rub the top of the post (yes, I know what I'm saying here) and that activates the water for 5 minutes. As long as a kid runs back to the post every 5 minutes or so, the water stays on. A nice conservation tool. You can see the post in the 3rd picture here.

From 2010 08 13 Fontenelle Splashground

In the picture below, the young man behind Timmy (their friend Dean) is at the post that activates the water.

From 2010 08 13 Fontenelle Splashground

I took all these pictures with my iPhone -- I'm impressed with the zoom quality in these next two pictures. This is with maximum zoom, I was 20-25' away from Jacob!

From 2010 08 13 Fontenelle Splashground

Labels: friends, just for fun, nebraska

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Nebraska Discoveries 8: Ashfall Fossil Beds & "Fossil Vacations"

A couple weeks ago, Jacob and I (Timmy was in NY visiting Grammy and Grampy) headed out with our friends and neighbors, Shannon, Brandon, Connor and Dean to the Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historic Park, which is near the small town of Royal, Nebraska.

From 2010 07 30 Ashfall Fossil Beds

We had learned about it from our visits to Morrill Hall State Museum in Lincoln, there's a room dedicated to the skeletons assembled from Ashfall, along with an advertisement for the facility.

Ashfall isn't close. About 180 miles from Bellevue, and well over 3 hours worth of driving each way. So Shannon and I aimed for a 7am departure time, and headed out.

View Larger Map

Not only is Ashfall not close, but the nearby towns are VERY small. However, the drive is very scenic and really not that bad. My GPS gave me some problems because it didn't have a couple of by-passes in the system and we had some adventures going off road looking for the right way.

Once we arrived, we explored the visitor's center and the scenic trails:

From 2010 07 30 Ashfall Fossil Beds

We then headed to the "Hubbard Rhino Barn", which was a huge building expressly built over the active site. The building was completed in June 2009, over an area that had been worked on for 12 years, and there's probably 20+ more years of work enclosed in the building. I imagine a single winter up there could undo a lot of the archeologists' work during the warm season. This was a pretty cool facility...it's not all that interesting just watching scientists gently brushing away at skulls for hours at a time, though. Lucky for us, we got to see one of the senior paleontologists chiseling away at some extra-compressed soil:

From 2010 07 30 Ashfall Fossil Beds

Like I'd said before, this place is really truly in the middle of nowhere. And it isn't huge. We visited everything in about 2 hours. But I was in awe of how many cars were parked here.

From 2010 07 30 Ashfall Fossil Beds

I talked to a couple families, one of whom had arrived in a Chevy, I mean, Chevrolet Suburban with California plates and California Angels stickers decorating it. I was curious as to how folks knew about this place. One of the families was bringing their teenagers on a "dinosaur fossil" vacation! Whoa. Inside the visitor center I had learned more about all the fossil sites in Nebraska, and the California family was planning to visit several of them.

So there's this "Fossil Freeway" in Western Nebraska which has 8 sites to visit, from which you can turn east on U.S. 20 and head towards Ashfall.

I never considered a "fossil vacation". Fascinating. Would you or your kids be interested in a fossil vacation???

See more pictures from our day in Ashfall here.

Labels: nebraska, science, travel

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Our Delightful Long Weekend in Colorado

Hello friends! We just got home from our long weekend in Colorado! I'll summarize our trip in the next few blog posts, but in short, we had a really good time! The day in Denver with Adam, Rose and Brad's wedding, our day in Golden, and 2 days in Rocky Mountain National Park were all tons of fun!!!

Here are a few "teaser" pictures (to steal from fellow blogger Bengela's example from a recent -- more exciting -- trip she took).

Dave got a birthday trip to Caboose Hobbies!

From 2010 08 06 Denver Trip & Stoor Wedding

Our college friend Adam met us in Denver and showed us around. LOVE his "Skywalker Ranch" t-shirt:

From 2010 08 06 Denver Trip & Stoor Wedding

We had a great time at Rose and Brad's wedding at Buckley AFB and their delightful reception -- Paris-themed, of course!

From 2010 08 06 Denver Trip & Stoor Wedding

Who'da thunk Jacob was such a great dancer??

From 2010 08 06 Denver Trip & Stoor Wedding

The Colorado Railroad Museum was a good time...here's Dave explaining the difference between standard gauge and narrow gauge, and how the track they were on was "dual gauge":

From 2010 08 08 Colorado RR Museum

The boys had a good time at the Coors Brewery Tour (even the little ones!):

From 2010 08 08 Coors Brewery Tour

And Mom learned how NOT to pay $20 for a 5x7 family shot in front of a green screen by using her iPhone camera (shhhhhhh!):

From 2010 08 08 Coors Brewery Tour

Our stay in Estes Park was at the YMCA of the Rockies -- an amazing family-friendly resort!

From 2010 08 08 Coors Brewery Tour

We did two half-day hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park, the boys are such troopers and seemed enthralled with the rugged mountains and the plants and animals around them.