Des Moines Day

We are on October break at my school. One of our days was to go to the Science Center of Iowa and then eat sushi. We went to the Science Center because my brother Bo went there with his old school on a different break and he liked it and wanted to go back.

We went to Gateway Market for breakfast. I ordered Juevos Muneulos -- it was an egg with a tortilla with cheese on it, under it there was beans, ham and picante sauce. It was good but it was too big for me to eat all of it.

Juevos Munelos at Gateway Market

Bo: I ordered a Snicker Doodle cookie -- it had cinnamon and sugar, and it was big and it tasted good. I had already eaten two bananas and some Takis tortilla chips. So I didn't order a big breakfast. 

After Gateway, we went to the Science Center. There's a new dinosaur exhibit there. After we got our tickets we went straight to the Dinosaur Exhibit. There were dinosaur skeletons there. There was a sucomimus, an orinosaurus, and another one I can't remember. There was also a stamp machine where you put a piece of paper under it and pressed down on the stamp and it made an imprint of the dinosaur. In another room, they had more dinosaurs. There was giganotasurus, masaikasaurus, rapatasaurus, and some others. After we got all six of our stamps, we took a picture with them. Unfortunately, my mom lost them so we don't have them.

After we went to the dinosaurs, we went to an area with a conveyor belt where you could put food on, fake food of course. They had lots of kinds. One part was you dumped the food off onto the conveyor belt, it dropped onto another conveyor belt and then it goes on the last conveyor belt where it dumps in a tub and gets sorted.

I was on the most dangerous job. A lot of the time I had to dodge plastic apples, pears, etc., coming down at me.

There were more exhibits in the room -- a bubble exhibit, which we didn't stay at long. And there was also a whiffle ball track with pipes and pieces on magnets so you could make a track. There was one more exhibit in the area that I went to. It was a big frame with red and grey pegs that you could push your hands into and it made an imprint on the other side.

What we did next was an area about movement. One of the exhibits was to make a dam. You had these rubber blocks that you had to put together to make a dam. There was another exhibit where you could race tennis balls down three different tracks. At another exhibit you could make Lego cars and have them roll down a track, racing other cars. My brother built one that had four wheels and about 10 blocks of rows stacked on top. My car kept running into the wall and falling over. It could barely even start because I made the wheels too far down. 

There was also a paper rocket exhibit that I didn't pay attention to. There was also an arch making exhibit, it was almost impossible. You needed at least two grownups to help. Another exhibit was these plastic balls that went through tubes with air. My favorite exhibit in that room was the egg-dropping contest. They were fake eggs made of hard rubber. You had to put plastic wrap around a rubber egg and tie it together with black ropes. Then you sent it up a chute where it fell from 20 feet and you saw what score you got. Five means your egg got smashed and one means that your egg was not smashed and you did a good job. I tried sending an unwrapped egg up the chute once and it made a very loud sound when it hit. My brother did a plain egg too, and it also made a loud sound. 

I made a very puffy egg with lots of plastic wrap and I got No. 1 -- which is "good job." We tried it one last time and we got "good job" again. 

After that, we went to a space room. There was a ball inside that had an electric force where if you touch it, electricity would attract to your finger. There was also an exhibit about a temple where in the Egyptian times that they used to tell time. Light moved from one side to another on each solstice. There was a lot of other space stuff. One of them was a game where you could find planets in other areas and you could look at them through a few different waves -- radio, microwave, infrared, visible, gamma, x-ray, ultraviolet. 

There was one other very cool exhibit in the space room. It was a big dome where you could make your own movie and play it like a movie on the big screen. It seemed like you were in space because it looked so close up and real. 

There was one more section -- the reptile section. It has tons of animals in it -- mostly snakes and a few turtles, lizards and toads. There was also a bat cave where you walk in and it has bat sounds. There was also the Channel 13 weatherman doing the weather from that room. I had a chance to be on TV at noon but I didn't want to. 

After that we went to the gift shop. My brother got a painting kit with four different dinosaurs in it. It came with colors of paint and two brushes.

After that, we ate lunch at a restaurant named Wasabi Tao. It had a very good sushi roll there -- Angry Tuna. The tuna tasted a little bit like salmon and looked like salmon too. It had my favorite sauce -- orange mayo. It also had some other toppings that I can't remember, including avocado. For my drink, I got ice tea. My brother got cherry Coke and my mom got ice tea too. 

We all got bento boxes. Mine was the strangest. Bento boxes are a tray with different kinds of foods in different sections. My main entree was beef negamaki -- it was different than what I thought. It had a thin layer of beef around the outside and green onion on the inside. I could not even taste the beef. I wasn't a huge fan of it. I liked the sauce on the salad -- it tasted like trees. It was ginger dressing. I also liked these little dumplings or rolls that had fish inside. It tasted good. They also had plain white rice that I liked a lot. There was also four California rolls. I ate seven pieces of those -- all of mine and most of my brothers. I was stuffed after eating all that. My brother's salmon was terriyaki. It tasted oceany and just tasted like good salmon. It also had terriyaki sauce that made it more sweet. My mom got shrimp. 

Overall, I liked the Wasabi Tao restaurant. Next time I want to get only sushi rolls instead of a bento box. 

After lunch, we walked around the skywalks and then went to the State Historical Building. I think kids would enjoy the Science Center a lot. Not all kids would enjoy Wasabi Tao, but I am one who does. Most kids would enjoy the State Historical Building. I think they would like the interactive displays. I'm the guy who actually likes to look at stuff in the museum. My favorite exhibit was the Midwest Hollywood display because it showed the movie, The Field of Dreams.

Tomorrow we are going to Boone to ride the Scenic Valley Train. We're going on the basic excursion ride and maybe on the trolley, if it's open. I think we will be on the yellow diesel engine. It's a Union Pacific. I know a lot about trains.