Out and About

Rock and Mineral Bonanza

Every year in mid October, the Minnesota Mineral Club hosts a rock and mineral show.  For $1 a kid and $2 an adult (family max $5) you can wander through a room full of vendors selling all kinds of rocks and fossils.  Outside, people sell larger (and sometimes cheaper) specimens in the parking lot. Last year, I gave the boys each $10 and they came home with trilobites, a huge geode from Iowa, rocks that fluoresce, agates, fossil fish and alligator teeth and a fossilized crawfish dwelling. There are also homeade displays of rocks and a very reasonable lunch offer.

The best part, though, is the kids area which has volunteers helping kids start their own rock collections.  Kids pick a sample from each of 10-15 different kinds of rocks and glue them into a specimen box.  It's how both my kids started their rock collections.  Kids can also make dinosaur masks, sand art and a variety of other mineral related crafts.  It's all included in admission (although I make an additional donation in the jar provided.) 

This is not a polished event (if you'll excuse the pun).  It's put on by hobbiests who want to share their passion for rocks and fossils.  I find it more charming for that (and think it's great for kids to see adults who are lifelong learners, too).  This year's show is October 15 and 16th.  You can download the flier for this year's show here.

Geocaching in Miesville

The gang and I headed out to Miesville Ravine Park in Dakota County today.  Several friends had recommended it and they were right to; it's a wonderful little gem of a park.  

A spring fed trout stream gurgles through the park and meets up with the Cannon River.  There are about 4 miles of trail along the stream and river.  The trails are groomed for skiing in the winter, there are picnic shelters and a fire ring.

We were out for a hike and brought along our Geomate Jr. which guides kids to the nearest geocache.  The first cache brought us 30 feet down a side trail to a little pool under a willow tree.  It was beautiful on this warm October day and would have been the perfect place for a dip in the middle of summer (as it was, Hal went up to his belly button).  We'll come back for some creek stomping next year.

We also "found" the spring that feeds a part of the brook.  It's visible from the trail as you hike on the northernmost loop.  The boys and I were fascinated to see so much water just flowing out of the ground.  (image from Dakota County Parks)

Just What Can $10 Buy? A lot of creative fun.

For Hal's recent birthday, we headed up to Axman Surplus on University Ave.  This is the place to go if you're looking at a stint of stay-at-home days.  Want to explore electricity?  They've got gears, batteries, buzzers, alligator clips.  Build a doll house?  They've got tiny craft components of all sorts.  Make up board games?  Dice, tokens, and poker chips await.  Don't know what you want?  They have go-kart sized tires for $1, surgical tubing for $1.50 and rubber chickens for $2.25.  What's not to love?

Hal wanted a building themed birthday party so we picked up interlocking foam noodles to cut into blocks as well as the material to make a modified "funnel-ator" to launch things at our cardboard box castle.  See instructions at the end of this post.

The staff members often have multiple piercings and tattoos but are always very eager to help you
find what you need, especially for more unusual projects.  On one visit, a staff member spent fifteen minutes testing buzzers out to see which one would be bearable for a classroom electricity project.  Answer:  no buzzer is tolerable in a classroom setting!

I have combined trips to Axman with Como Park Zoo which is in the same general area.  If you haven't been recently, it's worth the trip to check out the new polar bear exhibit.  We also enjoy the rain forest and the plant conservatory.  There's a hands on kids' area at the zoo, too, but it's geared toward very small children.

Looking for a lunch option?  Fasika has great ethiopian food (often rated #1 in the cities) and is around the block from AxMan.  On this trip, we headed to Little Szechuan which is down University toward the capital.  Technically, it would probably be a better lunch stop for the History Center or the Capital but I'm always looking for an excuse to visit for their cumin lamb and stir fried green beans. 

Modified "Funnel-ator" for a five year old's birthday party:

Materials:  Two 5 foot pieces of surgical tubing (nice and stretchy), 2x2 foot piece of vinyl or similar material, Exacto knife, "hoppity hop"

Instructions:  Make a small hole in each corner of the vinyl.  Thread an end of tubing in each whole and knot.  This will create two tubing "handles" on either side of the vinyl.  Make a slit big enough for the hoppity hop handle in the center of the vinyl.

To use:  Have two strong people stand across from each other, each holding a tubing handle.  Have the launcher put the hoppity hop handle through the slit in the vinyl then pull back as far as he or she can.  Release the handle to launch the ball a satisfying but safe distance.

Variation:  A large funnel (also available at Axman) can be attached to the tubing instead of the vinyl.  This funnel can launch any ball or water filled object by placing the ball in the funnel and pulling back on the spout.  Please note, the objects can be launched very far with this "tool."

Collector's Corner, Prairie Mazes and Edible Landscapes

The Science Museum of Minnesota is well known.  James, Hal, Hazel and I headed up this morning for a short visit.  (We became members because of the free Imax shows, the expense of a single visit and the reciprocal benefits at a lot of museums including The Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.)

 

Two tucked away features of the museum have become our favorites.  At the Collector's Corner you can trade a natural object that you've found for one that another child has brought in (or that the museum has purchased).  The more you can share about the object, the more points you receive for your trade.  The interaction with the museum staff is always great -- today James got to look at some sand he brought in under the museum's microscopes.  You can read more about Collector's Corner in this post from last summer (note:  the building exhibit mentioned is no longer at the science museum.)

Big Back Yard is open only during the summer but has a braided stream water
table (sadly, you can't climb into it), a prairie hedge maze, a camera obscura, and edible landscaping.  We ate our picnic lunch at the picnic tables just outside the door, avoiding the temptations at the food court, then we picked cherries off of the trees for our dessert.   I am smitten with the idea of getting some edible landscaping at Prairie Creek.  There's also a water themed mini-golf and a "pan for gems" area but you have to pay for them...not worth it.

The Guthrie, Mill City and Donuts

If you're looking for a slam dunk Saturday, consider heading up to the Guthrie and Mill City Museum.  The Guthrie has tours at 10am on Saturday or you can listen to the audio tour ahead of time (or download it to your iPod) and then share the pertinent bits with your child.  That's what I did when the Herons visited the Guthrie this year.  The building is amazing and it was useful to be able play the tour guide with the factoids I learned with the audio tour.

Stop by the Mill City Farmers' Market to say "hello" to our very own Colleen at the Braucher's Sunshine Harvest Farm stand.  The taco truck has great fries and fantastic tacos (including tongue tacos -- something it's not always easy to find).  Chef Shack has great donuts, too.  A former Prairie Creek family owns Shepherd's Way Farm and they're there selling cheese and wool products.

Gold Medal Park has a great hill for rolling down (and some some nice landscape architecture).  The Stone Arch Bridge walkway has great views of the lock and dam and falls.

Mill City Museum is worth a visit, too.  I find it a little slight for return visits but it's a solid one trip museum.  Highlights include the elevator tour, the cube puzzle and the water "play" room.  If you're patient, you might get to join in a cooking demo.  My students also enjoyed going to the top floor by elevator and taking in the view.

All of these things are located in a single block!  How's that for efficiency?

A Cache of Chaos

Today we visited Hyland Park Play Area (often called "Chutes and Ladders").  It's a massive habitrail of tunnels, nets and slides in the Bloomington Area.  In the summer, there's a feeling a happy chaos as masses of summer camp kids swarm the structure in matching T-shirts.  But, according to my kids, the older kids help the younger ones in the structure and everyone gets along well.  As a parent, it took some getting used to -- you can't keep an eye on your child at all times and there are multiple exits from the structure.  

In addition the play structure, the park also offers paddle boat, kayak and canoe rental.  Bocce ball and tug of war ropes are also available.  And, in the winter, there are cross country ski rentals.

Best of all, there are free GPS devices to try out geo-caching.  You get them in
the visitor's center (just make sure yours has a full charge before you head out on the trails.)  One of the caches is within yards of the parking lot and we went to two more that were less than a mile a way.  

If you're not familiar with geo-caching, it's a treasure hunting sport that uses longitude and latitude as clues.  When you find the "cache" (often a bottle or tin) you sign in on the paper inside and then trade a trinket.  You can buy little trinkets in the visitor's center or come with your own (popular items are neat rocks, quarters, plastic frogs, superballs...you get the idea).  It took us about 2 hours to find 3 caches (but that included a 15 minute dash back to the visitor's center when our batteries ran out.)  One of the caches is on an island that can only be reached by boat.  The boys put that on our "definite" list for later in the summer.

Tips for play area:  We picked an easy to find "base camp" and everyone checked in pretty regularly during the two hours we played (it helped that I had snacks and water to entice them out of the structure).  The day camp groups are there from 10-2.  It's much quieter before and after.   There is a "misting" area which is more of a soaking station.  It helps to have a towel.  There's a Brueger's Bagels (3809 Old Shakopee Road) on the drive up which is my favorite cheap lunch.

 

 

Kids in the Wild

We officially kicked off summer today with a trip to Kids in the Wild, the natural playground area at River Bend Nature Center.  A response to concerns that kids no longer had the chance to just muck around in the woods, the "playground" has large rocks, the beginnings of a log cabin, and log balance beams and climbers.

But the feature that keeps us coming back is the small streamlet that runs through the play area.  There are plenty of rocks and sticks to construct dams, waterfalls, bridges, lakes, oxbows, braided streams, ...a veritable smorgasbord of geography terms.  Even better are the flash floods that happen when you break through one of your dams.

Both of my boys played happily for two hours, the youngest spewing a running commentary about his theories on fluid dynamics, "See mom, when you put a rock in the center of the stream like this it helps balance the flow on the dams downstream..."

Some tips:  Bring an extra set of clothes for each kid.  Wear boots (I hate muddy sandals).  Bring lunch or a snack so you can dry out before getting back in the car (the interpretive center is out in the prairie area and has a few picnic tables).

If you've never been to River Bend before, they have a small but good nature center with lots of things to touch, a 3-D topographic map of the area, rocks and minerals, animal displays and a first rate bird watching area.  My boys also enjoy the kids area but it's geared to kids who are pre-k-2nd grade.

My pick for ice cream/lunch/snacks in Faribault is the dutifully named "The Coffee Shop" which is at 313 Central Avenue.  A super nice family runs it and, as a woman who doesn't bake her own bars, I definitely recommend their baked goods.  -- Michelle Martin

Cannon River Rendevous

We headed out for some pioneer fun this weekend and found ourselves some of the only "modern" people in the midst of over 100 re-inactors (including children).  The Cannon River Rendevous has found a new space just east of Northfield and the organizers, Twin Cities Muzzle Loading Club, have plans to continue it every Memorial Day weekend (although I'd check their website http://www.tcmlc.com/ before I headed down Highway 19 next year).

In our few hours among the re-inactors, we ate fry bread, gathered beads and pennies that had been hidden in some hay, learned about muskets, threw hatchets at a target, practiced flint and steel fire starting, made rope and had some great conversations about the differences between our time and this one.

This isn't as much of an educational show as Dakota City, Murphy's Landing or Fort Snelling.  The people you see are heading over to trade with their "neighbors" or do other things re-inactors do.  But everyone we talked to was happy to answer questions and engage with children.  We'll definitely head back next year.

Caponi Art Park

On Tuesday, I took Cricket and a batch of young ones to Caponi Art Park. They host a Tuesday 10 am series of musicians and performers (free, small donation requested). We saw and heard a just marvelous Irish music duo, one on a variety of wind instruments including apparently velvet bagpipes and the other on several harps, plus a step-dancer. Went away feeling filled with gaiety. Caponi does live open-air Shakesepare, and a fall Medieval fest in the woods. It's a spirited spot, close enough to just pop up for the morning. Hiking, woods-walking, moss and mushrooms and sculptures.  Submitted by Josie Rawson

The Bakken and Environs

 James, Hal, Elizabeth, M.R. and I headed up to Minneapolis to visit the Bakken museum.  I'd never been there and had always meant to go.  The museum specializes in electricity and has several rooms of hands on exhibits.

We especially enjoyed "Mindball" where you try to move a ball using just your brain waves (which are electricity).  We also enjoyed a series of historical static electricity experiments that were parlor games in the 1800s.  Be prepared to be shocked, literally, as many of the exhibits seem to have a mild shock as the entertainment/interest element.  We spent an hour and a half there and explored it thoroughly and we are very slow museum go-ers.  I won't go back soon with the kids unless we also do a workshop (which looked excellent).

If you like to "make a day of it" I suggest adding a trip to the excellent bookstore, Wild Rumpus, and Sebastian Joe's ice cream in Linden Hills.  We've also enjoyed a ride on the street car that stops right there at Lake Harriet.  Several good playgrounds are also in the area (including one that's a great climbing/sand play lot for older kids called "Lyndale Farmstead" just Northeast of Lake Harriet).