Every great once in a while, we decide to venture out of the woods and take a trip into the city. This weekend we decided to head to Roanoke, which we only do a few times a year.
Our first stop was the Science Museum of Western Virginia located in the Center in the Square. The Roanoke museum isn't really that impressive, but we purchased the Annual membership for $55, which is part of the ASTC Travel Passport Program. The program gives free/discounted membership to all participating museums. During the summer, we love to take day trips or weekend trips to visit participating museums in the area. A few of our favorites are Sciworks in Winston Salem, NC and the Museum of Life Science in Durham, NC. The Natural Science center of Greensboro will probably be our next Museum trip, it wasn't a participent when we had our last membership, but is included now. We have never been to it, but have heard that it is really a great museum.
Our first stop was the Science Museum of Western Virginia located in the Center in the Square. The Roanoke museum isn't really that impressive, but we purchased the Annual membership for $55, which is part of the ASTC Travel Passport Program. The program gives free/discounted membership to all participating museums. During the summer, we love to take day trips or weekend trips to visit participating museums in the area. A few of our favorites are Sciworks in Winston Salem, NC and the Museum of Life Science in Durham, NC. The Natural Science center of Greensboro will probably be our next Museum trip, it wasn't a participent when we had our last membership, but is included now. We have never been to it, but have heard that it is really a great museum.
The Roanoke's Museum is very small, but does have a lot of hands on stuff for the kids.
This area was new, they now have an exhibit where you can touch horseshoe crabs. There was also a small aquarium with pretty fish in it.
The kids really enjoyed the Kapla blocks display. Although the blocks were very simple, there was so much you could do with them. They had several books set out that showed amazing designs and really creative things you could do with them. It was great watching the kids build with them.
The Virginia Tech Entomology students were doing a bug demostration while we were there. They had lots of creepy crawlies. Being bug enthusiests, we really enjoyed the demostration. Both Sequoia and i touched the giant hissing coachroaches, and Sequoia really enjoyed looking at the different bugs under the microscope.
Although the museum is small, we all had a really good time. Sequoia and Kenan both had a lot of fun on the Flight Simulater and Sage seemed to love everything.
After leaving the museum we took a walk through the Farmers Market. Roanoke really has a nice farmer's market, although it isn't really obvious from this picture. They had tons of produce, and vegetable plants as well as many local artisans. i always love to wander through the Farmer's market, and although i have no desire to ever live in a city again...i do miss having a local farmer's market.
After wandering through the city, we decided to stop for a picnic lunch at the Salem Duck pond, also called Lake Spring Park. This was the view from our picnic.
After wandering through the city, we decided to stop for a picnic lunch at the Salem Duck pond, also called Lake Spring Park. This was the view from our picnic.
We walked the path around the ponds and enjoyed seeing all the ducks and geese.
From there we headed on to Blacksburg's Caboose park. It is a really awesome playground, with three separate play areas. We started off on this giant wooden Imagination station. This was a lot of fun for everyone.
We eventaully moved on to the other areas of the playground and left nothing unexplored! We played until we were exhausted. It was a great day for everyone, but we were all happy to return home to the quiet of the country.
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