Free Day....BLECH!

A little background:

Last year I took the kids to This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City. They had a lot of fun and I decided to pay a little more to get the year membership so we could come back again with Daddy and have more fun. I fully expected to be in the area enough to get our money's worth.

I didn't think that most of the times we would be in the area were winter/spring holidays. The park isn't really open then. At least the buildings aren't. That's most of the park. We did get to take a freezing train tour of the park during our Thanksgiving visit.

So, with Chad starting a new job (and losing most of his freedom to take off when he wants) and me getting less likely to embark on any kind of adventure, we decided to challenge the weather and head down there yesterday. We were going just for the park. We left the house a bit after 8 AM. Joseph not only doesn't like Nursery! He's not a big fan of the road, either. We had to stop at the mall in Layton to let kids out and get some lunch. And I needed a break from those insane, death-defying Utah drivers.

What is it with these people? Are they all late for something? Do they think they are the most important vehicle on the road? Do they think those speed limit signs are only friendly suggestions? Utah could really get a boost to their revenue if they'd get more patrol cars out on the highway. I didn't see a single person pulled over the entire trip. I'm surprised I didn't see any accidents either. The rain was coming down pretty heavy in some parts.

ANYWAY...it took us 4 hours to get to the park. We were hoping the rain would have worn itself out by the time we got there. It actually looked like it was getting worse. And then we saw the cars. An entire parking lot FULL of cars. Apparently, it was "Huntsman Day". Admission was free. FREE??? We just drove down from Idaho to get our money's worth out of our membership and it's a FREE day? Someone please shoot me. Hello This Is The Place!...I was just on your website last night and it didn't say a word about being a free day.

I was counting on being able to duck into a building and getting a nice little story from someone in pioneer costume every time the rain got too bad. How the stinkin' heck am I supposed to duck into a building that's already got 75 people crammed into it? And with 5 kids? We parked the van and walked to the first building. I murmured and grumbled the whole way. There is no electricity in the building. It's cloudy outside. It's dark inside. There are 60 people just on the first floor. Oh, and they're giving out free ice cream. The end of the line is in the rain, which is coming down harder by the minute.

The only way to get to the rest of the park was by the little train...the line is long and standing in the rain. Never mind getting someone to shoot me. Give me the gun. I'll do it myself.

We stood in the gazebo and deliberated. This originally brilliant plan to do something fun with the kids has been destroyed. (Oh yeah...Chad hung my jacket up in the closet before we left the house, but loaded everyone else's up in the van. I only had my sweater on. No umbrella because the kids won't leave it alone and now we can't find it. Yes, we only have one. Well, maybe we have none.) Eventually, we came up with an alternative and told the kids we were headed back to the van. We lasted about 10 minutes.

Normally, I have lots of complaints about my kids' attitudes. This time, I have only praise. No one grumbled that we were leaving. Maybe they saw what millions of other people couldn't see...It was insane to be there! We decided to drive a little further to an aquarium in Sandy. This was one of our possible museums to visit during Spring Break. Luckily, we hadn't gone and thought this would be a good 2nd choice. (Except that the park would have been free and the aquarium cost us $40 to get in and $12 to get out...we had to get some toys to keep Joseph from screaming the whole way home.)

The kids did have fun, though. Here are some pictures from that. There was a rain crowd at the aquarium, too, but these were the more wealthy people.


The kids are looking at some cayman (think alligator) and turtles in here. Well, Leah is looking at me. I can be a little alligator-like sometimes. ;)

They were trying to touch the sting rays. I wonder how many kids fall into this pool. The fish are farther down than they look!

Daniel was so good to keep track of Joseph. He's got a firm hold of him here. It wasn't always so easy.

There were some really little fish down there. I got 5 kids in the shot, but that one up there in a white shirt isn't mine. Still a cute picture, though.

Chad did most of the work. Here he is holding Joseph. I did a lot of sitting. I traveled between a lot of benches!

Joseph saw something in there he liked!

From there, we headed home. Originally, we planned on just driving straight back home. But the day had been rather irregular and we were starting from farther away, so we called my mom and told her we were in the area and would be crashing her house. She was kind enough to feed us dinner. I was grateful for that. My head was aching, my feet were sore, and I was really wanting a nap.

We stopped just north of Ogden for gas. I bought a huge package of licorice and a movie for the ride home. We don't usually buy movies. I was desperate for as quiet a ride home as possible. It mostly worked. Joseph wasn't especially captivated by Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

We got home just after 9 PM. Thirteen hours away from home. The kids fell asleep quickly and slept late (even so, they were all up by 8:15 AM...late is relative for some families). I couldn't believe our luck in hitting that free day. I'm glad they enjoyed the aquarium. We aren't going anywhere far for a LONG time!