Road Trip - A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village

While my husband was visiting his grandmother at the hospital today (she is doing a better, by the way), I took the children to A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village, in downtown Salem. It's one of our usual stops when visiting family in the area. And, although the family membership has gone up to $75 per year, it allows entry into so many other children's museums across the country, that it's still worth the price for us. Really, with six children, family memberships are almost always the way to go.


For those of you who live in metropolitan areas, the Gilbert House would seem like a standard sort of children's museum, with it's multi-cultural...



...creative, scientific...


...and musically themed exhibits...


...but there is nothing even close to it in Montana. Of course, the real draw for the children is the gigantic outdoor play area, designed to look like an enormous erector set (A.C. Gilbert was the creator of the erector set).


And, my three year old discovered a squirrel by one of the benches, which she was pretty sure was part of the fun. So, we got to have an impromptu lesson on respecting wild animals, and giving them their space.

The children had a great time, but after our run-in with the hospital, I found myself wondering if the children weren't being exposed to H1N1 at every overcrowded exhibit. I'm not sure if I'm getting paranoid, or if it was just all the warning signs, and bottles of antibacterial hand sanitizer on every county, starting to get to me! Or maybe, it's been too long since I really left the house.

I guess maybe, a natural sort of quarantine, is one more reason it's great to be a homeschooler!