Marcy's Travel Blog- Through The Eyes of a Child! Part 1

I'd like to introduce my guest blogger, Evan. Evan is my 9 year old grandson! We shared a wonderful mini adventure this week, with Evan acting as my guide. The following is the adventure, as seen and reported by him.

I find it fascinating and wonderfully refreshing to experience the world- and adventures from a child's point of view! So please join me in the wonderful and sometimes amusing fascinations of a 9 year old! We packed so much into 24 hours, this adventure will be reported in two parts!








From Evan himself:

I am Nonna (Grandma) Marcy's 9 year old grandson. My birthday was in June. Nonna Marcy gave me a gift of a special trip to Ann Arbor to the "Hands On Museum"- and an overnight at a hotel that has a pool! Cool! Because we are both busy, we had to wait until this week to take our "Ann Arbor Adventure".

We got to the Holiday Inn in Ann Arbor before check-in time, so left our suitcases in one of their closets and headed into downtown Ann Arbor.

We drove through Ann Arbor, looking for "Ann Street", and got a bit lost with all of the one way streets. We finally found the street and parked in a structure, across Main Street. We were almost parking on the roof!

We were hungry! We decided to have lunch at the "Heidelberg Restaurant", because I LOVE bratwurst . This was "my" day, so I got to choose!  The food was really good! Yum!

This was Josh, our waiter, who took good care of us!

The signs on the restrooms were sort of confusing! You had to be careful and read the small print!







I told Nonna Marcy to be careful when she went there, not to go into the wrong one!














This one was hers!

We walked a few blocks to the "Hands On Museum". I've been here before, so I was going to be Nonna Marcy's tour guide! I love this place!









There was so much to see there! Nonna bought the family a years pass, so we were able to go there all afternoon- and then go in the evening for a special "member's night"! We were there a total of 5 hours!

I'll share some of my favorite parts.


When you walk in and pass the front desk you walk up musical stairs! Each step you step on plays a note!

The first floor has two whisper dishes! I whispered in one- while Nonna listened at the other end of the room!







That floor also had an ambulance,










       


         a machine that made a tornado!

      There she goes! We went back to this one several times!

There also was a house here that showed how it was built, and how everything in it-
(even the toilet) works. But that's too many pictures. It was fun to see, though.










There are machines there to test your heart rate. Mine was 94 beats per minute. Nonna's was 61, consistently. She told me she's always had a slow, strong heart beat. There were all sorts of machines to test different body stuff. She beat me in being flexible! But I beat her in other areas. That was fun to do it together!

The Mezzanine was where the Preschool Gallery is. It looks so cool, but I couldn't go in. It's for kids 4 years old or younger. I saw a bigger kid in there later, and thought that wasn't very fair. Maybe I can go in there with my little sister sometime.

 On to the second floor!

                                      Now for my favorite part!!  Or, at least one of my most favorite!

This is where kids can use Styrofoam blocks to build homes or castles! I came back here at least twice- maybe more!

First you build it, carefully!

Then you admire it!

Then.....

The REALLY FUN part!!

Totally destroyed! YES! HA!

There was a water play area where you could fish with magnets for magnetic fish! There were girls there that didn't want to share the fish- so I just waited them out. Got the whole area to myself for a while!

There was a section on Land fill gas and generate plant. It let out stench smelling gas! Yuck!

We left at 5 o'clock to wander downtown Ann Arbor for an hour. We found a little shop where we got water and a cinnamon roll to share. Since Nonna got us a years membership, we were able to go back for their "Special Membership Event"!

This was from 6-8 p.m.

They had special cars out front for us to see and sit in.

The snacks they had for us were "Rice Crispy Treats" (we took the rainbow kind), and water. Nonna and I participated in a three legged race. (We didn't win)

We made sure to go through each floor again, checking out as much as we could.

There was the Ice Climbing Wall

A Periscope- SO cool! We could see what was happening on the next floor up!



















The was an area where you could send a message by using colored balls to signify each letter. The sign said it was like e-mail. I sent a message to Nonna that said "H-I"!

To the right is the map of where the balls travel to to get to Nonna. To the left is the sign that shows how to form a letter with the different colored balls.

There was the general store- where I made change.













And the bubble wall, where you could surround yourself in one big bubble!

By 7 p.m. Nonna announced that we had been here a total of 4 hours, and she was getting tired! (This was not counting the hour break we had in downtown Ann Arbor!)  But we stayed until they closed at 8! There were many more things we saw and did while here- too many to post! But I had so much fun!! And Nonna said she did too!

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the rest of our adventure!! Stay tuned!!


(A note from Nonna Marcy: I was one TIRED lady by 8 p.m., but the adventure continued. And I'm happy to say I was pleased to see how much joy a boy can get from what we adults may take for granted!)