The second part of my recent stay-cation, and every bit as good as Empire, ended up being focused on things that might be generally categorized as “science”.
We began at The Burke Museum and saw lots of fossils, bones, stories, and pictures.
The Burke (hipsters like me shorten the name affectionately – not to be confused with the trail of the same affectionate, hipster-like name) is an amazing resource really, it is nicely sized for a short day-trip and amounts to a bit more than your typical childs attention span. And if you feed them appropriately, the children that is, it may stretch even longer.
It’s no Smithsonian but it’s also not a drive-thru tree with an attached gift-shop.
Still amazing to me is the beak on this prehistoric, and aptly named, Terror Bird.
It was supposedly only about 9-10 feet tall – imposing sucker I tell you and I would have sworn it was 15 feet tall if it was an inch. I am rather glad we don’t have to contend with this beast in the modern day; lions and bees and bears and lunatics are quite enough for this slightly paunchy father of two thankyouverymuch.
At the Woodland Park Zoo we got to see “REAL” dinosaurs; this one even spit at us.
The T-Rex actually caused LaGrande to recoil and cry – and I can see why; it was HUGE and imposing.
TheWeeOne on the other hand
[amazed tangent]
Ya know I just realized that TheWeeOne – if I were forced to resort to giving her an acronym – would be TWO…hehe, not bad.
I may have a natural fallback for when she isn’t so “wee” anymore.
[/amazed tangent]
…as I was saying…TheWeeOne on the other hand wasn’t as fearful and in fact several minutes later made sure that I capture a picture of her running away from the lion…that was chasing her.
I mean…THE LION that was chasing her.
There.
Yet another day, we also saved a nice butterfly from death-by-vehicle as it fluttered haplessly about the roadway.
This butterfly spent two days coddled on fresh flowers in the playhouse and then finally flew away of it’s own volition. That made The Rescue Mermaids VERY happy.
All the while TheMermaids completed their swimming lessons, we swam, and played, and hatched some plans for our last adventure of my staycation, our swansong…which I will detail in the final installment, Part III, of my 2011 Staycation.
blief 
One can’t help but believe that when that butterfly flaps its wings, something good will happen.
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Concerning (by a very concerned Great Grandpa Z) the photo of the Lion taking a swipe at TheWeeOne: — —
Now hold on a minute! Is this the same BLOG in which a certain Blogger posted a photo showing the damage to his garage roof caused by some large solid object (like and ice ball) that dropped from the sky??
Hmmm!!
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