When researching different spots around Austin to visit, this museum kept coming up. Sadly I had never heard of it before this class. I did know that there was an IMAX theater in Austin, but had no idea that it was part of this museum. I purposely kept the IMAX theatre from my kids because I really thought that’s all I would hear about until it was time to go. When we got there, we got a nice surprise – the exhibits were free that day! So, we took a vote on which movie we all wanted to see. I’ve heard good things about the Texas Spirit Theater, but everyone voted to go see Born to be Wild, which was showing in the IMAX theatre. We started on the first floor all together looking at the shipwreck off the coast of Texas – we got to see a human skeleton which amazed my kids. They didn’t believe they were real bones at first! Then we moved to La Belle, the French colonization of Texas by La Salle. Next, we visited the First Encounter, which was the Native American exhibit. There was a cool tipi set up with a video about the Native Americans that occupied Central Texas. Upstairs, on the second floor, there were several things that caught my attention in some way or another. First, there was a small mention that pertained to a library. Apparently some women of the Dallas Shakespeare Club established the reading room in Dallas' Carnegie Library in 1903. Also, in 1929, women in Beaumont organized a traveling bookmobile for Tyrell Public Library. It was the first in Texas and one of the first in the nation. The next thing I found fascinating was learning about the secession of Texas and Texas becoming a state. I think I mentioned already in a previous post that I didn’t learn much in my Texas history class, so it was almost like reading all of this information for the first time. Of course I knew about it, but not to the extent that the museum information provided. This floor was by far my favorite! It was time for the movie, so we headed into the theater. This film was in 3D, so between the huge screen and the 3D effect, we all thought it was amazing. The story was nice, too. It was about two women in different parts of the world and their cause to care for orphaned animals. One took in the baby elephants whose mothers had been killed by poachers. The other took in orangutans who lost their mothers when the loggers would come in and tear down their homes. They raised the animals until they were fit to go back into the wild. We all enjoyed it! Now we had the third floor left to explore. I have to admit that by then we all had lost some steam and did not devote as much time to this floor. We did look at the trainer aircraft and talk about the differences between that plane and the commercial planes that we fly on. We flew by the oil exhibits and the ranching exhibits didn't hold our attention, either. We walked downstairs to see the timeline on the computer monitors that we had missed on the second floor. I pulled up JFK and we watched to snippet about his assassination. We got to see the front page of the Dallas paper the day after his death. Although I wasn't alive, having been through a nation in shock after recent events, I can imagine to a degree how people felt in the days following this. However, when discussing it with my children and to watch it have no effect on them at all seemed so strange. I guess I should be thankful that they do not yet know what tragedy is or feels like. That will come all too soon. We decided that we were done for the day and headed toward to the exit. My kids begged to stop by the gift shop on the way out. I said that was ok, but I sure wasn't in the mood to hear, "I need this. Please, may I have it. Will you buy this for me?" I told them they had 5 minutes as I prepared for the relentless pleading for souvenirs. At that moment, the fire alarm went off and we were forced to evacuate! I'm not sure the reason for the alarm, and I hope that everyone there was unharmed, but I had never been so pleased to hear a fire alarm!
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