Use It or Lose It Vacation: Day 4 - Perot Museum

We decided to keep Troy home again today and head to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. We thought he might like the dinosaur skack-ee-tons (i.e. skeletons), and we were curious about the other exhibits. We decided to get there when they opened to try to avoid any crowds, but apparently a lot of other people had the same idea. So, while we waited for the doors to open, Troy and I played with the rain pipes that were dripping near the entrance. I taught him and some other little boy that tapping on the different length pipes with a rock would produce different pitched sounds. So they both happily banged away on the pipes much to the chagrin of the little boy’s mother and every other parent in the area.

The route through the museum leads you up the escalator, which Troy loved. He called it the moving stairs. I taught him to “jump” at the end, so the stairs wouldn’t eat him, and he laughed as we both jumped off the last step. The escalators take you all the way to the fourth floor, which is where the dinosaur skack-ee-tons are located.

The first thing we were greeted by when we stepped off the escalator was a giant T-Rex skeleton, mouth open wide and teeth bared, chasing a small pterodactyl trying to fly to freedom. It felt like we were stepping into a strange world where skeletons had come to life, moving and being despite having no muscles or skin. Unfortunately, I don’t think Troy was as impressed by them as I was. I guess after you’ve seen dinosaurs for “real,” skeletons lose a bit of their luster. Around the corner, we encountered the rest of the exhibit, which featured another T-Rex and a Brachiosaurus, it’s long neck snaking up to the next floor. But Troy gave them merely a passing glance and then ran off to the next thing.

He was most impressed by the small (relative only to how big they could get) Mosasaurus skeleton. He came back to it several times, excitedly screaming, “Mosasaurus, Mosasaurus!” But he ultimately preferred the things that he could see without having to imagine what they must have looked like. For example, the small T-Rex statue, the prehistoric bison model, and all of the stuffed birds. I was most impressed by the Quetzalcoatlus skeleton hanging from the ceiling, it’s wings unfurled and soaring across the room. It was thirty feet tall with an equal-sized wingspan, roughly the size of a giraffe or a small private plane. It’s crazy to imagine flocks of those soaring across the sky, blocking out the sun.

But I didn’t get long to stop and admire the Quetzalcoatlus, or anything really for that matter. Troy was excitedly running from thing to thing; pushing buttons, climbing stairs, and asking, “What’s that, dada?” And I was chasing him. Round and round we went on the skeleton floor, before my wife decided that it was time to head down to the next level. Here we encountered a scientific explanation of weather and rocks. The coolest part of this area for the kids was a large sand pit that projected different colors and bands to represent the elevation of the sand. The kids could move the sand around, and the colors and bands would automatically change to match the new elevations formed. Even though he was intrigued as to why everyone was fighting to get into the sand box, Troy had no actual interest in messing with the sand. He preferred to flip through the information kiosks, “reading” books about scientists and weather patterns.

Bored of the weather area, he headed around the corner into the gem area, which he blew through in a matter of seconds. Then, we found ourselves in the oil and gas area, which Troy seemed to enjoy immensely more. This was mostly due to the fact that it had a lot of machinery and stuff that he could twist and spin and move. So, he ran back and forth manipulating the various implements, and I chased after him. My wife was moving more slowly through the exhibits, actually spending time to observe and enjoy them. Catching up to us at the very end, we all headed down to the next level together.

This final level focused on animal and human anatomy and behaviors. Troy enjoyed the taxidermied animals in various habitats and poses, calling out all of the animals he knew and asking for explanation on the ones he didn’t. Then, we headed into the activity zone. This was where we spent most of our time at the museum. It had robots that you could drive, buttons that you could push to make music, and things that you could construct. Next to the robots, Troy thoroughly enjoyed the air tubes. It was a series of clear tubes crisscrossing across one wall that you could drop colored balls into and watch them twist and turn their way through before being ejected from a random opening. This was obviously a big hit with all of the kids.

The last section was a study of humans. Troy didn’t care much about this section, but he did enjoy one game. It was a computer that would track your movement and project it into a screen. But not just your body, it would analyze and predict where your skeleton would be based on your motion and project it on top of your moving form. So, basically you were watching your own skeleton dancing along with you! Troy was dancing and bouncing along with several other people, his tiny little skeleton bending and twisting along with him.

We called it quits after this, feeling like two and a half hours at the museum with a two-year old was long enough.