Meramec Cave and Children's Museum: Children's Museum

(Part two of the day of Meramec Caves and Children's Museum, talking about things that took place on the 8th of November, a Tuesday. )

We parked behind the house/museum, and then went into the humongous place, first going to the left part of the building and then going around to the front door. We found ourselves by a ticket booth, and with an opening to two large rooms. A big cut out with a railing and second floor and also bottom floor was on the left. To the right were hallways, rooms, but with no doors, just air where door should be. A young man gave us a map as we payed for all, and told us to have fun. We went to the right first, and I was ready for anything, not sure if it would be babyish, or actually fun.

One of the first things we saw were four chairs with colored seats, yellow, blue, red, green. The back had metal notes of music on it, and by the actual seats were museum dials saying brass, string, woodwind, and percussion instruments. On the wall said musical chairs. I sat down on brass (blue) and heard a musical concert of trumpets and other brass instruments. I shifted to the green (percussion) chair, and heard drums and pianos. Yellow was strings, violins, violas, and guitars, and red brought woodwind, flutes, and other stuff like that. I enjoyed that a lot.

Another room was full of bubble contractions, like things were you pull a big ring around you and pull bubble material around you, making a kind of ray or shield. At another one we blew a HUGE bubble, and I popped it. It was fun.

But it would get more fun as we went farther in, seeing cool ball contraptions and scientific experiments, like magnets formed and electrical charges. I learned a lot of about science. Then, we did a cool thing where we saw a single wall with metal rods, little tiny things, going through it, on one side, on the other none. We were told to put our face in, and we did, making an exact copy of our face on the other side, made of the rods. It was really funny. By that place we were told to go downstairs to see a Lewis and Clark exhibit, and I saw a sentence saying: You are being Transported 208 years in the past to embark with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on a journey to explore the Louisiana Purchase over two years. We went down some stairs, and found ourselves at a ladies desk and she told us to take a ticket(with a little rope around our neck) and to go through the exhibit, and that we could only go through the whole thing once. Looking forward, I saw about twenty small ropes connected to the ceiling and a corridor going up. She told us to go and swing forward, and I took the ticket and held onto the rope, balanced, and swung forward. There was no going back, now.

I barely made it, falling forward and then backward. I went up against the wall, trying to think, as Rebecca also made the journey. Mom was outside, so it was just us. I looked right, seeing a single fat rope and big pit below. The other time there was only fake water, now, if you dropped, I don't know where you would go. It was black and shafty, and also scary. Rebecca went first, making it pretty well. I went next, putting my feet up and swinging. I went to the other land spot, and then went back to the other, and then I dropped. Where did I drop? Where did I land? Did I land? Yes. I came onto land, but at a heavy cot, hurting my arm. We went to the right again, and came across a fake little bridge full of fake fish and snakes. We then had to go down a shoot, and when I came up I was seeing a fake beaver. We went down another shaft, and saw a bear on two feet, growling, fake but lifelike. We then went across a hard level. It was a single rope horizontally across, with two small ropes higher up horizontally. It was a balancing rope. Rebecca went across and balanced and such, but fell to her death. Well, a fake one feet pretend death, and she later came back up and got across. I, despite being scared, got off pretty well.

We went to many other parts, like little attics and even a wall where you took a picture and your shadow stayed, a figure of black on the green screen. That was really cool. We also touched a huge metal ball, and had our hair stand up. Many parts were fun, although the best on the right side belonged to Children's Village, where I did many fun things. We came into a wide room with fake buildings looming all around, a fake little house, a restaurant above it, a hospital and library by it on the top floor, and a bank and grocery store. I went into the house, and ate fake dinner with Rebecca, also seeing the little living room and bed room. We then went into the bank, and I wrote a check and got a lot of money from the cashier, and later went to the grocery store and got groceries. It was fun to do all this what my parents do, and I later went upstairs, read in the library, watched Rebecca at the hospital , and then ate at the restaurant. It was really fun. I then switched roles and worked at the bank, and grocery store, and then three little kids came in and told me they were going to rob the bank. I, always an actor, backed up and left them take the money, and as they emptied the register, I took back one of them and put my hand to his face, telling them to leave or I would hurt him. They left, but they would be back. I went to work at the grocery store, getting bags filled and such. It was fun until they came to this place, and were about to try to hold up this one when I took a huge fake loaf of bread and defended myself with it, and then they got the loafs too, and we all fought each other with fake bread things. It was so much fun!

I went into the hospital and stole a fake baby, with kid doctors and nurses running after me. It was so fun to do all this, to feel like an 8 or 9 year old again. It was awesome.

Well, by and by we left and did other things, like slides and things of that nature. Finally we went to the left part of the museum, and saw a green pole that went up a floor, with fake leaf stems as big as a T.V. It had stuff saying it was The Beanstalk, from Jack in the Beanstalk. It was kind of like McDonald's stuff. Rebecca and I crawled it up, and at some points it was hard to go through the leafs, laying down, but at others it was quite easy. I actually climbed a beanstalk, and I felt how it felt to get to the top and be so tired. At the top, there was a little spot where you look over and Mom took our picture there. As I went up, I was crawling, at others laying, at others climbing, and at others slipping. There were alternate exits and ways to go in there, like there wasn't one way to get up, there were many. I loved it, although it made me VERY sore.

At the top, I saw a little area with a large bookshelf full of books and such and chairs and couches. Mom sat down there, and I looked at the books. They were old and large, and I wondered what they were doing here, in a children's museum. A library or history museum better served them as their place to be. I saw a favorite book of mine, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.Incidentally ,there were dials of the museum sort telling about them, saying they were part of the clue, and to look for a book by an author who's named rhymed with royal, and name starts with Sir. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! I had already found it, and then it said to touch hard that books spine. I did so, feeling the dusty rough leather and gold tinted words. A part of the bookshelf moved back revealing another room, with science bottles and kids in lab coats. I had found a secret room! It was totally unexpected, like something from Scooby Do, James Bond, or Nancy Drew. "Rebecca," I shouted, "come over here! " She was equally surprised. We went in. For some odd reason, I still to this day do not know why, a little 6-7 year old girl with glasses and a lab coat and long blonde hair and white skin attacked us, along with her slightly older brown haired friend. They charged at us before we could even look around, and my alert instincts soon reacted by dodging them and running to the left. Rebecca did too. I was so confused. Were we set up? Were they hired to do this? Were they joking? What did I do them? Whatever the reason, I needed to act fast. And so I did. I saw a ladder that went into an air vent, and remembered how in D.C. I had crawled in an air vent, in the Spy Museum. I went up that, and the crazy girl followed at my heels, shouting in a Russian accent that didn't match her, "Get zem! Get zem! We must now allow zem zo get away!" I crawled in the vent fast, and Rebecca followed. I went and saw out a window Mom in the couch, and quickly went on, with the girl trying to catch my heels and legs with her hands. I got to a hole of some sort, and went down a shaft, and found myself at the end of the lab room, at the foot of a slide, which had a corner with a desk, which no body would suppose someone would be hiding behind. I went there, and hid until the girls came out. They looked around, and then moved on in the direction of the entrance. I thought it would never work, that they would see me, but now I see that it was just like in movies, that people really are that ignorant. Anyway, I looked around, but didn't have a long time to look, because Rebecca came down and told me to hide again, or leave, going through a little door that was shaped like a fireplace, one I would enter and exit often. I wanted to look, to collect evidence, to find out what was going on. Then the girls spotted me again, and the chase went on. For the next 20 minutes, I ran, hid, slid, crawled, jumped, and yelled a lot, being chased by them and doing many a cool thing. It was the best fun I had had in ages. Then, Mom made us go to another spot, and we went downstairs. I was very sweaty and tired, and it was fun to just take it easy. We went into a fake Oval Office, and a fake Judicial Branch center, and a Legislative one. It was cool to see our three branches of government's places. We then left, the one, the only, the fun, the awesome, the fantastic, Magic House. We drove home, and I slept a great nights sleep in my pulled out bed after one of the best days of my life.

Still sore, but getting better,

Andrew.