Tag Archives: ECHO

Care to Play?

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We took a trip into Burlington today and visited the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center. We go to ECHO often enough that we have a membership. Seeing the fish and turtles and ocean touch tank are interesting pretty much every time. They also, however, have a rotating exhibit. The current one is called Playing Together, which is all about games. They have games on display, such as a giant chess board and hopscotch and, one of my favorites, skittles. All of them are available to play, so whether the ancient game of Senet or the more modern Backgammon, fun can be had.

We wanted to play chess on the giant board, but it was never available. That thing is popular. My children played Bubble Hockey, which is like foosball, but hockey instead of soccer. My wife played hopscotch several times. We did not come close to playing all the games. We will have to go back.

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Skittles uses a top to knock down pins–the harder the pins are to reach the more points they are worth.

I love games. Before children games were a major source of fun in our house. We still play them at home, but different games and not as competitively. One winter night our pipes froze and my wife and I stayed up all night trying to thaw them out. While we waited for steam to do its duty, we played Quiddler. We played hand after hand and got such high scores we were impressed with ourselves with such an amazing display of wordsmithing. Then we realized we had played several hands too many. We stayed up way too late that night, and the pipes never thawed anyway.

I taught my son chess a few years ago, and then gave him a chess board for Christmas. We play occasionally. I don’t cut him any slack but when I stop paying attention he sneaks up on me. I am not all that good at chess so I imagine he will surpass me if we play enough.

We should get back into playing games more often. We have played a few of them this week, as we are all off for the school break. It would be a good habit to keep up. Maybe another visit to ECHO will inspire us again to make it a regular activity in our house. The exhibit was inspiring. There are just so many fun games to play. Games night anyone?

Breakfast and Biking and Building

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A stop on the Burlington bike path

We slept out on the porch last night. A section of it is screened, so we set up cozy beds on the couch and had our Z’s outside. We woke up later than I thought we would, given that the birds are singing at 4:00, about 7:00. I gathered some things while my son rubbed the bleariness from his eyes and then we headed to town.

First stop was Penny Cluse Cafe. They have the best breakfast around. My son had buttermilk pancakes, which he said were almost as good as mine. Right thing to say. And he wasn’t even after ice cream. I had beans and eggs and corn muffins–not something I typically have at home, which was the idea. Coffee, fresh-squeezed orange juice–we were good to go on the meal front.

Next stop was the Ski Rack to pick up my son’s bike that had gotten some service. We rolled that outside, pulled my bike from the roof rack and, with full water bottles and some snacks, we headed to the lake. We passed the waterfront area and headed north on the bike path.

It could not have been a more perfect morning. Sunny, just warm enough, the lake and sky a summer blue. We pedaled our way several miles until we came to the bridge across the Winooski River. We stopped to look out at the river and the lake and the wetlands. Then we went a little further into Colchester.

Looking back toward Burlington

Looking back toward Burlington

We parked our bikes and checked out the lake, just off the bike path. Now that the water is finally low enough we could walk out to the marsh. We saw a couple of great egrets, a great blue heron and I finally heard marsh wrens. Those marsh wrens bring me up to 172 different bird species I have found in Chittenden County this year. I am aiming for 175, at least. I think I’ll make it.

We also saw basking map turtles

We also saw basking map turtles

Then we headed back south and parked our bikes outside ECHO, Burlington’s science center, to do some building. The rotating exhibit currently features KEVA planks, flattish rectangular blocks. There are some amazing structures there on display. We got there just in time for one of their daily challenges. We had five minutes to build a bridge. We teamworked it and did pretty well:

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I had started my own bridge before the challenge started and decided to enhance that one:

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We will be back to build some more this summer while the exhibit lasts. It is way fun.

Back home, my son got picked up to hang with a friend. I got some more painting done once the shade shifted around to right spot. We won’t have quite the blast tomorrow, but I am hoping it will be a decent one. We will sleep on the porch again and wake to the morning sun. No Penny Cluse tomorrow, but I can make pancakes at home. Apparently, they are pretty good.

Real Indian Arrowhead

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For real–it says it right on it!

OK this is not a great photo. I had a hard time getting one that was in focus. But the irony was too much to resist. I found this at the gift shop at ECHO. What would Columbus think of this?