OMSI etc, Part 3 of WA/OR trip, Oct. 2012

On Thursday, we visited the Ape caves and Mount St. Helens. This post is about what we did Friday during our fun trip to Washington and Oregon in October 2012.

Karen and Scott had taken the next couple of days off so we could play with them! Yay! So we found the nearest Starbucks to get our fix then headed into downtown Portland to OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. We enjoyed a couple special features. One was the OMNIMAX theatre. We chose to see "To the Arctic". (This link may not bring up details on this show after March 31, 2013.) It was a great movie "witnessing one mother polar bear’s determination to keep her cubs alive in the face of natural predators and a rapidly changing climate." Annisia liked the baby polar bears...of course!

We visited the Science Lab and the Turbine Hall where the kids learned how to make gas, then light it, how to change air flow from tube to tube to shoot little balls across the room. We visited the Paleontology Lab in the Earth Hall.

The special feature was something called Grossology...click on "Click here for Grossology", then "Show Me" then "5,000 sq ft plan" and that's what OMSI had when we were there. This from OMSI's site..."What makes a nose run? Why does drinking soda make us burp? Where does food travel during digestion? The Oregon Museum of Science (OMSI) invites visitors to find the answers to probing questions like these and more as they explore all the slimy, mushy, oozy, scaly and stinky gross (yet scientific) things that occur every day inside us. Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body opens at the museum September 29." If you're interested, click on "Download Image Sheet (JPG)" to see photos and descriptions of all the exhibits.

Jonathan became a dust particle inside a giant nose at the Grossology exhibition to learn about air filtering and heating, olfaction and mucus production.

Annisia scales a skin wall where scabs, pimples and blisters are the foot-holds.

We took a tour of the USS Blueback, the U.S. Navy's last non-nuclear, fast-attack submarine. Michael and I have taken the tour before, but it was fun to show the kids.

We went out into the windy drizzle to go down to the submarine. It is docked in the Willamette River close to the Marquam Bridge, a double deck bridge. North/east bound traffic uses the top and south/west bound traffic uses the bottom. I used to drive the Marquam to and from work in Portland when I lived in Vancouver.

Jonathan and Annisia were fascinated with all the interesting details; how they layer the #10 cans of food on the floor and fill some of the bunks with food so they have enough food to last before surfacing, how small their bunks are, how they rotate bunks...if you're on shift, someone else is sleeping in the bunk you just vacated, and more. As we descended into the submarine, the tour guide pointed out the step on which a blue line was painted...that's where we went below the water line. Annisia thought that was cool. Jonathan was interested in the torpedoes. I was glad to be done with the tour as the fuel smell was getting to me and I was feeling claustrophobic.

The propeller from the submarine. The USS Blueback was used in the movie The Hunt for Red October.

We left OMSI by 3pm so as to get across the bridge to Vancouver before traffic hit. We planned to meet up with friends, Joyce and Richard, before the potluck that was planned. The kids got to see big ships on our way across the Columbia River on the I-5 bridge. We found ourselves another Starbucks to keep fortified. By now, Annisia had fallen asleep, which was good. We got our drinks, then met Joyce and Richard at a park by Fort Vancouver. The kids played while we visited. Then off to Paul and Glenna's home for a small visit before heading to Bill and Debbie's home for the potluck. What a good time! It was nice to meet up with some of the people I used to go to meeting with. John and Rebecca, Edie, Bob and Alida, Rex and Donna, Daryl and Tara and their kids, H and K...(their names are unusual enough that I won't post them because of my confidentiality rule.) The kids enjoyed meeting H and K...they thought they were COOL and didn't want to part at the end of the evening!