Ice, sleet, and snow!

"A WINTRY MESS" read yesterday's headlines. And one look at the front page shot of quite the convoy of snowplows working hard to shove aside the slush -- seven in all, hot on the heels of each other on one highway -- and you get the picture, of how not so fun a winter storm can be!

The wallop of ice and sleet started before dawn, Thursday, and surprised schools expecting to deal with it later in the day. And many, like the school our boys go to, announced closings first thing in the morning, if not, early dismissals, and then again the next day, when a second wave hit yesterday.

And while the steady fall of slippery sleet was enough to ground flights, not just imperil driving (and thankfully, road situations improved yesterday), staying home all day also saw Jon and Ben at each other's throats a lot! So much so, their daddy, besides me, had to tell them, enough was enough, no more driving us parents up the wall! Yes, it was that bad, I wished I knew just how to channel their energies to more creative use. But all the talk about driving did drive me to sit them down to a little project that had been on my mind.



Not so fortunately, not that I didn't know how short both their attention span was, the boys' enthusiasm was short-lived. And what could have been easily done, turned out to be nearer to "Mission Impossible", and just another of this mommy's "crazy" ideas! Every time the boys walked away, I thought to myself, maybe I should have just sat down here instead, to do my own online version in the first place!

So here goes the story behind this story, of that belated post -- one of those things I've been meaning to do, to help me make sense of the pictures when I look back next time!

That Martin Luther King weekend last month...


It was not freezing rain nor sleet, but a snowstorm we arrived to in DC, for a long weekend over the Martin Luther King holiday, at the same time Vern was having a conference there.

Whether it's ice, sleet, or snow, if you ask me, winter isn't the best time to travel. So then, you could say making this trip was rather radicial by my standards. If not now, though, it would be awhile more before we could all be able to set foot on those same steps where the famous civil rights leader had delivered his "I have a dream" speech!

At the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the Washington monument...


But before I get round to sharing a bit more on the "patriotic" sights in the country's capital, (and looks like it'll have to take another post, another day for that), here are some highlights of what there is to do indoors. My only "research" was based on Fodor's and Frommer's travel guides I went and borrowed from the library the day before we left, and a friend's top picks that went beyond what we managed. But if like us, you aren't looking to do too much, or have kids in tow, these may be the kind of places that'll work for you, too! =)

Must see: Air and Space Museum


Our boys got off to a flying start here, where you can find some amazing treasures of air and space -- from the earliest days of balloon flight, to the current explorations of space.


And that's the Spirit of St Louis, not the replica, and of course it caught our attention -- that first custom-built plane to make a solo, non-stop trans-Atlantic flight.


There are hands-on activities also, to interest children in the physics of flight. Think of that section of the museum as a mini Science Centre!


Most crowded: Natural History Museum


Also one unforgettable moment for Jon, as he came up close with a madagascar cockraoch! Ben went for the dinosaurs instead, always a favourite with him, and he was just thrilled when I told him he could go ahead, "Please touch" that Triceratops! It's his most favourite dinosaur!


Pity The Mammal working on the fossils was off-duty though...


But with so many wonders of the natural world on display -- over 100 million specimens, there are lots to see, although, no, we didn't try to do everything! I do like how the exhibits are arranged, the sections flow rather seamlessly from one to another!


Must try food @: American Indian Museum


With the American History Museum closed for the time being, this was our next best choice! Jon had buffalo burger for the first time, and gave it a thumbs up!


Ben found good old chicken just as finger-licking, lip-smacking, good. Vern liked the tamale (chicken and masa/corn in a corn shuck) a bit more than I did. These, among other native-inspired meals and snacks that the museum food court offers!


Food aside, there are diverse collections of American Indian art and culture objects, as well as interactive displays showcasing the lives of Natives told from their own perspective.


My favourite spot is the Lelawi Theater (not shown), with its tiered bench seating around a canvas of sorts, with a woven blanket hung over it, that served as the screen. The images in the film also got projected on a rock below it, not just the domed ceiling overhead. Making it seem like an omnimax, except this was a much smaller, cozier setting.

You can tell, too, that careful thought has been given to the architecture of the building, that's more than the usual brick and mortar.


Has travel guru Frommer's (and also my!) stamp of approval: Postal Museum


Here's where I took the boys on the day we were on our own. Not top of most tourists' list, however, I picked this place partly because it was recommended by travel guru Frommer, and partly because it was right next to the Union Station! Most of the other places required a lot more walking from the subway station.

This is the place to learn about postal history, and even what role Benjamin Franklin played. And that's Ben, and his namesake, with Jon giving him a hand (a lift!) for a closer look!


The displays of different modes of transportation, and a chance to climb aboard a full-size, big-rig truck, show how moving mail from one place to another, has come a long way.



The interactive displays were pretty cool, too, and the Postal Inspector section ones had Jon and Ben trying to crack some cases!


Make a stop also @: Union Station


It was here that my lovable sons stopped and made monkey faces at me! And in the struggle to see who should have the camera, it fell to the ground! A kind passerby, who saw my hands full, volunteered to take our picture for us instead!


True, I was less up to it, and not as adventurous to hop on and off the subway and buses as much as I did on my own with the boys, in New York over a year ago now -- that one and other time we followed Vern for an out-of-town engagement. But breaking up the day to do a bit at a time, helped. It worked, not to try and pack in too much. I couldn't because of the queasiness, anyway. But this was how it went pretty much for our trip, and the smiles in these pictures remind me of so much there is to be thankful for!

When I can, I'll like to finish the rest of this account with the part about the memorials and monuments. You bet I saved those to do with Vern, so he could be the one to carry Ben when our little boy's feet tired of doing all the walking! Hey, with all those "excess" baggage (additional layers that makes travelling in winter more cumbersome), he does weigh quite a lot, you know! ;p

Anaconda goes after caiman!

Our 2-week winter break is almost ending... so soon! All break long, I've been nagging Jon to please sit down and write something, but he'd rather read only, or do some Math, over writing. And of course, given a choice, he and Ben would rather just play and watch TV all day long, over anything else!

Finally, Jon wrote this one entry in his journal, something we started awhile back to encourage him to get into the habit of writing (which as you can see, needs more work!). And he churned out "a short one!", he assured me it would be, because it was already bedtime. A charming little tale, and I really like that cute drawing he did, of the snake going after the croc! Once the anaconda got its prey, he could go without food for months, wrote Jon, and then, it was "The End"!

See? Short and sweet, like he promised it would be! But now, Jon also included a fact or two, like the green anaconda being the largest, and that it is not venomous. These are things he gleaned from not just Bear Grylls encountering a reptile here and there in his "Man Vs. Wild" exploits, or Ben watching "Bindi the Jungle Girl", Bindi who shares the same love as her late father Steve Irwin for not just crocs but other animals as well.

We have been reading about reptiles for awhile now!

Reptile Reads
For a quick, fun read, may I suggest:
Lizards, Frogs and Polliwogs
by poet-painter Douglas Florian, who is also the author of Insectlopedia. Both books have illustrations that are as delightful, besides themselves being clever visual puns, as the poems.

More great reads here, that the boys themselves picked out from the library this week. There is a little section on reptiles, that they would go look up, whenever I take them there! And with enough books we haven't exhausted!



The World of Reptiles
Maybe it's a boy thing, Jon and Ben are quite into reptiles, and especially after I took them to the zoo back in summer, hoping to catch the blue-tongued skink. And we ended up seeing more than just an anaconda and caiman in the Herpetarium, for which the St Louis zoo has a nice one, and we are thankful!

Going over the rest of the pictures from our recent Chicago vacation, I realised reptiles was also quite the theme for what we saw, although they weren't entirely all we set out to do!

So, if you are heading that way, here are some of the cool spots where you can come up-close with all kinds of reptiles, from dinosaurs (as close to the real thing as you can get), to the one komodo dragon (yes, a live one!) we saw!

The Shedd Aquarium
Besides fishes and dolphins, stingrays and sharks, there is a brightly-lit section on reptiles! I especially like the three-sided glass that wraps around each exhibit, so you can get a good view of the reptile!



It's here that the komodo dragon resides, not a very big one, but safe behind the glass. Now komodo dragons are not venomous, though there is enough bacteria in their saliva to cause a fatal infection.



The Field Museum
So you are greeted by a dinosaur, not just an elephant (don't think it was the mammoth) at the entrance. In addition, there's a whole section dedicated to just the prehistoric reptiles!



And more than just Sue the T-rex discovered, there are others from the different periods, including Ben's favourite Triceratops, one of the last dinosaurs to roam the earth!

The Children's Museum
Toddlers and preschoolers may like to hunt for dinosaur bones in one of the sections here, although Jon who's older, didn't quite dig the place as much.

Ben had less reservations, about that T-rex!



The Nature Museum
Go on a Thurs or Sat, for those are the two days, when there is a feeding of the snakes, and watch the rattlesnake and the cobra devour a rat each! Not for the faint-hearted!


The python was too sedentary to go for the rabbit, though, because of its low metabolic rate, to even flinch.

While there, we also got to touch a corn snake, the kind an older schoolmate had brought to show Jon's class before, and he had been asking to own one, too.



But OK to touch and feel, not so OK, I tell Jon and Ben, to keep as a pet! Somehow, I have to admit, I do find reptiles rather creepy! So while I took a turn, too, I touched that non-venomous snake very very squeamishly!

The lengths we go for our children, but some things, we just have to say no! ;p



P.S. You know, the thing with a travel post like this one, even when no one's reading, if I don't write it soon enough, I'll never get round to it. But when I do, it does help us make better sense of the pictures, when we look back afterwards!

Thank goodness for the holiday, to slow down some, but also to try and catch up on this and that. But now, I'd better get cracking on that closet full of absolutely must-iron, unironed clothes, except ironing is not something I can do, with kids running and jumping all around! But the pace is going to pick up, once school resumes!