Free day – Wachs Across America

Today we headed across the Mississippi river to the St Louis zoo which is free. Yeah, FREE! They do charge for parking, however I am not much of a zoo guy so I dropped the fam off at the entrance then drove about a mile further into the Forest Park where there were some covered pavilions and I was able to get some work done. They saw elephants, apes, hippos, ROUSs (Princess Bride ref) and despite the heat they also saw polar bears and penguins.

They texted me a little after noon to come pick them up and we found another shady spot in this park for our picnic lunch. Forest park is over 1300 acres and was home to the 1904 World Fair. It is a very nice park with lots of trees which provided shade to help us beat the heat.

After lunch we went to the Science Center where our reciprocal membership got us free parking and free admission! We’ve been to the McWane Science Center in Burmingham AL and MODS in Ft Lauderdale FL while we’ve been on our trip. Science museums tend to have very similar exhibits but they also have some unique ones and this place was no exception. As soon as you enter there is this giant “ball machine” filling the atrium. I didn’t get a picture of it because (a) I was so mesmerized just watching it that I forgot to take a picture and (b) it would be hard to capture on film (or silicon). It was like a giant Rube Goldburg machine with lots of balls and lots of different paths the balls can take. There are a few ways for the balls to get lifted back to the top to start their rolling journey but one of them is powered by people. There is a giant hamster wheel you get in and walk or run inside of to turn a cog which rotates a worm gear which turns a shaft with turns another gear which is attached to a chain which has buckets that lift the balls that lived in the house that Jack built.

We went to a Science Goes Splat presentation where they dropped things from the top of a 4 story high atrium to see what would happen. They dropped apples, water, bouncy balls, golf balls and arrows. It was entertaining and well done. Another area let you don lab coats and do some different lab experiments. We did the forensics one together then we split into a couple different groups to do blood typing and learning to use a micropipette.

We finished our time at their maker space area where the kids had access to lots of raw materials and built whatever contraptions they wanted to try to fly in these vertical wind tunnels. Another one let them design a sail for a “boat”. The kids had a ton of fun and the staff had to kick us out because they were closing.