Field Trip

This week Margaret and I took our little brothers on a field trip! We kept the destination a secret, mostly because I was afraid something would come up last minute and they might be disappointed. Once they found out we were going somewhere I was bombarded with questions trying to make me give "hints" about the destination ("Sam! Another clue: she said to wear our coats!" "Is it far away? Have I ever been there before?"). Well, they were having so much fun attempting to figure it out, I decided I wouldn't spoil it, and left them in suspense until we pulled into the parking lot of...the Bug Museum.

Two excited little boys.

We headed inside, and found lots to explore. One whole wall was a big ant farm, with lots of ants crawling around through tunnels in the sand and through little plastic tubes that connected the various colonies, dragging dead ants all into a big pile. William decided that this was his favorite part.

There were also live scorpions and cockroaches to look at in glass cubes, as well as a table full of bees and beetles of all kinds (these were dead, for which I was thankful, since some of the bees were huge). I think the coolest bug I saw was the violin mantis. They sit on little twigs and sway, and they really look a bit like they are playing a violin.

An alien musician

Some of the bugs were beautiful, not just scary or weird looking. Butterflies were everywhere, with their vibrant colours, and there were dragonflies and moths too. The butterflies were Sam's favorite bugs that we saw, and I'm inclined to agree with him. 

William in front of a case of butterflies

Now, the place is called a bug museum, but they also have a whole room full of live snakes, lizards, and turtles. The boys enjoyed this section a lot, although they were a little nervous about the way the python would stick her tongue out through the wire mesh on one side of her cage. Sam agreed to be photographed with her, but insisted on being on the glass side, far away from that tongue.

I figured if we were making the boys smile for the camera, Margaret and I ought to have at least one picture each, so she posed in front of the tortoise, one of our favorite animals:

Since I dislike spiders, and always feel creepy around them, naturally I had my picture taken with them. At least there were two layers of glass separating us. 

Me nervous? Ridiculous!

The last section we visited was full of snake skin, frog skeletons, and other reptile and bug remains, which you could look at through a magnifying glass under a bright light to catch the little details. Feeling the different types of snake skin was interesting, but I found the dried out carcasses of lizards with empty eye sockets a trifle distasteful.

William studies a model of a turtle skeleton

A gift shop is also part of the building, so before we left we looked through their collection of carnivorous plants and contemplated candy suckers with larvae and ants embedded in it. I scared Will pretty good by putting a rubber snake head on my finger and hissing at him.

It was so fun to do something just the four of us, I hope we can do another field trip sometime soon.