The husband didn’t feel like hanging around the house yesterday and didn’t feel like going to Borders…again. (*sigh*), but I wasn’t up to a day trip to Boston, so we went exploring yesterday.

First up, the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, VT. It’s small, but very hands on for the kids. Cool place if you should be wandering around Vermont looking for something to do. The African Leafcutter Ant habitat was WAY cool, and believe me when I say you don’t want those ants in your pants. Another favorite: They had a big-screen TV with an infrared camera. My kids look hilarious in infrared, especially the tall kid (because his glasses showed up as black.) They had experiments you could do with rubbing carpet squares and wearing oven mitts and such. (Lighter=hotter, darker=cooler) But we do our own experiments. The husband kept giving the boys “noogies” and they’d end up with big white spots on their heads. They also had puzzle stations and one of them in particular kept me occupied for a while. There was a wooden box with six wooden blocks. You had to fit all six of the blocks into the box without any sticking up above the top of the box. The tall kid and I each worked on it forever and came away completely stumped. The husband did it in less than a minute and we hate him now.

Next stop, White River Junction, Vermont. We stopped by to see the old railroad stuff and see how the restoration of Locomotive No. 494 turned out.

Of the 1,577 steam locomotives in all of North America, 34 are of the 4-4-0 type. 29 of the 34 are pre -1900 4-4-0’s. Of the thousands of 4-4-0’s built by the Amoscog Locomotive works in Manchester, NH, only 14 remain. Seven of these are at the Mt. Washington Cog Railway and have been modified for that unique application. Built in July of 1892, the 494 we have in White River Junction is 105 years old this month. It is the oldest surviving Manchester 4-4-0 in its original configuration. With the closing of Steam Town, the “494” became one of three steam locomotives left in Vermont.

And she looks quite lovely standing outside the railroad museum.

Then we drove all the way down to the Mall of NH and the short kid finally got to Build-a-Bear. Then all the way back home to dinner at our favorite diner.

*collapses in exhaustion* I wasn’t quite up to it all, but I managed to keep up.

Now I’m just curled up watching the first Formula 1 race of year. And hoping nobody suggest more exploring.

Anybody else do anything this weekend?