James had to spend the day in Roanoke for work, so the boys and I tagged along. Roanoke is not exactly a booming tourist mecca, but there was plenty to keep us entertained for a few hours.
After we dropped off James, we unfortunately started our adventures with an epic Rudy meltdown. Top five, for sure. Maybe the best one ever. I even had Brady videotape some of it, to show Rudy later. It was a doozy, and I'm just thankful that no one nearby called CPS.
Once Rudy was calmed down, we went to the Mill Mountain Zoo. It's quite small, and really more geared to the toddler set, but the weather was nice and the animals were active so we enjoyed watching the turtles, snakes, red panda, and small cats.
Next was a nearby playground for a picnic lunch. Brady made friends with this critter:
Then, up to the star. The kids haven't been in Roanoke at night, so I'm not sure they really appreciated this stop. The views of the valley were great though!
We have annual passes to a nearby science center, which gets us complimentary access to science museums across the country. We definitely get our money out of this purchase every year, and we love that it allows us to visit museums that maybe we wouldn't otherwise pay for.
Playing mindball, where I'm pretty sure Rudy was solidly beaten.
Rudy has a sideline hobby of "rock collecting," which generally consists of him picking up and saving random pieces of gravel or quartz. He does love learning about it though, and can often be found studying his rocks and minerals encyclopedia. He loved this exhibit:
One of our very favorite thing about a great science center is the lab. This one was particularly good, with plastic shoe boxes that contained different experiments. By far, the favorite was the magic disappearing water trick, where crystals (like those found in baby diapers) absorb all the water.
We had just enough time for Brady to buy everyone snowballs (like snowcones, but more finely crushed ice) before heading home.
