Thank You For The Music

Dynamic Earth (Science North at the giant Nickel) opened at 10 am and we pulled in at 10:01.  Yeah, look at us being on time on the last day of our trip!  Naturally, we had to start with the obligatory photos of the nickel.  It took some doing, but they turned out great.

We then went to play in the coolest playground ever, all themed around mining with big bull dozers and everything.  The Rangers and I had a blast checking it all out, well, that is until a day camp full of kids came running out and took over the place.  

We then travelled underground and back in time to see how the nickel mines operated in the late 1800s, 1950s and today.  It was over an hour tour and was well done.  Once again our uniforms got us some attention and the kids got to help out with demonstrations more than once.

Once we were done with our tour, we checked out the rest of the Science Centre.  It wasn’t large, but it had some cool stuff about building, digging, mining, and of course rocks/minerals.  The Rangers and I played in a few areas that were meant for younger kids, until kids showed up then we hightailed it out of there and pretended like we hadn’t been there at all (photos are not proof of this, nope, they are not).

By about 2pm we had pretty much seen all there was to see and decided to get back on the road, once again, ahead of schedule.  What are the chances?  I guess one in seven, since they managed it one day out of the seven!  

I spent the next couple of hours listening to the strangest story I think I’ve ever heard, and I really don’t think I could describe it if I tried.  Pop was reading it off her phone, something about fanfic for a game they like.  I’m not sure I followed the story much, but I did enjoy all the difference voices she used to tell it.

Our final stop was another nice dinner out.  There was budget money left, so yeah, everyone enjoyed a nice dinner, ate half of it, asked for take-home boxes and then ordered dessert.  I’d never thought about doing that before, but I think they were pretty smart.

You know you have a good travel team, when on the last half hour of a seven day road trip, the group is not sullenly silent, waiting to get out of the car, but instead singing Disney as loud as they can, and then discussing what will be the last song of the trip.  The vote was for “Thank You for the Music” (Abba) and proceeded to sing it loud and strong as they turned onto the last highway.  It didn’t quite time out right, and we all laughed as “Digga Tunnah” got the actual “last song” spot on our trip (from Lion King 1 ½).

For the third time today we arrived somewhere ahead of schedule, pulling into the driveway at 9 pm.  The car was unloaded and stories were shared with parents.  Nobody wanted to say good-bye, but good-bye’s had to happen, so we took one last group photo and called it a night!

I’m sad it’s over.  These kids were awesome and included little me in almost everything!  I would gladly travel with them again!  

Thank you for the music (and the laughs and everything else)!

Whatever!