Kitchener, Stratford, and Port Huron

Our trip is over and we're home sweet home. Just in time for a low grade heat wave. But here's the rest of our vacation.

After we left Niagara we headed inland to Kitchener where Jon gave a workshop to a group of piano teachers. We could have done without Kitchener. It was a little like walking into Twin Peaks. Or the Twilight Zone. Odd, odd, odd.

Calvin and I went to The Museum (really, that's its name) while Jon was lecturing, but their idea of a museum was pretty lame. Best part? Working the animatronic dinosaur parts.

We got the heck out of Kitchener as fast as we could and landed in peaceful Stratford for two days. What a totally different experience from Niagara and its neon flashing lights. In Stratford we took a pontoon boat tour, ate at the local restaurants, shopped in the quaint shoppes, and stayed in an inn above a tavern right on the main street, a block away from the theatre and the river.

Ye olde fashioned accommodations.

We ate breakfast at the local bakery across the street (chocolate croissants and fresh coffee). We talked to ducks, geese, and swans by the river. We played pianos street side. We relaxed and took it in, two days in a row.

Of course the real point of our stop there was to take in a show, and we saw Pirates of Penzance on Wednesday afternoon. It enchanted us to end. Calvin loved it. We played the CD all the way home the next day.

Following the musical we walked across the street to a small museum of the Festival's 60 years of existence. Two rooms of artifacts and we spent over an hour in them. Mockups of models from costumes and sets through the ages, and some of the actual pieces as well. The girls working the admission desk were the best part. They fell in love with Calvin and basically gave us a private tour. They even let us touch some of the carefully guarded pieces.

To break up the trip on the way home we stopped in Port Huron to visit the lighthouse, train depot, and lightship museums there. Thomas Edison I could do without, but the other two were pretty good stops.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

From the psych wing (not ward)

A few weeks ago we were contacted by the University of Michigan Cognitive Development lab and asked to take part in a study on value assessment. As an undergrad there I took several courses in the psychology department, including a course in developmental psych, during which I had to log a certain number of hours aiding in study assessment, and I like going back to help the kids who are in the same boat (and yes, I'm thinking of those college students as kids, which I'm afraid says a lot).

So earlier this week we headed to campus to participate in this study on value assessment. For these studies the kids first spend some time playing with the researcher in order to become comfortable, then the parent is taken into a room where they can watch the study from behind a one-way mirror. I watched as Calvin was asked to assign monetary value to each of a pair of objects several times over. For instance, how much did he think a pair of shoes belonging to Dora the Explorer would be worth, versus how much he thought the same pair of shoes would be worth brand new, or how about the cape belonging to dracula, versus the cape belonging to Joe Schmoe. He was shown the objects and the people in pictures, and asked to give his reasons for the values he assigned.

There were many permutations of the same question, and the first half of the study revolved around well-known characters with positive auras, the second half with the villainous portion of the famous. The problem is, Calvin knew who very few of the characters were at all. Dracula yes, Dora, no. And no to Diego, and no to Bob the Builder, to Cruella de Vil, to Woody from Toy Story, to Arthur, to Mario, to Bart. Though he was familiar with characters like Dracula and Mickey, he was unfamiliar with about ninety percent of the "well-known" characters they used to study the effect notoriety would have on item valuation. Afterwards, I asked the student what room they'd left in their study for the rare child who had no exposure to pop culture. She answered that they took those kids into account by making sure to use characters that even kids who didn't watch TV would have come into contact with through good old American commercialism (my words), i.e., seeing Dora on backpacks at school. I asked her if they'd left any room for kids who saw no TV and did not attend school with American commercialism. She just nodded and smiled. I'm pretty sure she has no idea such kids exist.

We were given a free parking pass to entice us onto campus for the study, so following our hour in the developmental psychology wing Calvin asked if we could walk over to the Museum of Natural History. I couldn't so no to such a request if I wanted to, so we spent a couple of hours taking in the archaic and taxidermied sights. Such a beautiful world we live in.

In the car on the way home I asked Calvin what he thought of the study, and after answering he asked me who Bob the Builder was. I think he was imagining a Lego guy. I'm imagining how far he skewed the study results.

From the iPhone camera...

The Titanic Artifacts Exhibit, Henry Ford Museum

We went to the Henry Ford Museum today to take in the Titanic Artifacts Exhibit. It's a traveling exhibit, I assume one of many, and Calvin has been looking forward to it for weeks. It was very well done, the artifacts nicely spaced out and visitors admitted in small groups every fifteen minutes so that we never felt crowded or rushed. The had artifacts recovered from the wreck as well as photographs, quotes, videos, and even life size models of parts of the ship. Photography was not allowed in the exhibit, so we just snapped a few shots outside.

And of course while we were there we stopped by the Driving America exhibit, the Allegheny Locomotive, and had lunch in Michigan's Cafe.

As a side note, some recommendations from Calvin for books about the Titanic: Tonight on the Titanic, Mary Pope Osborne, and the Magic Tree House non-fiction companion, and Finding the Titanic, by Robert D. Ballard.

Then we came home and enjoyed a warming sunshine (although not quite warm), and played with newspaper and glue. There may be a couple of mummies in our future, assuming our experiment works.

Detroit Institute of Arts

Today? How about a trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts. A number of mothers recommended it, and I've been wanting to go for a while now, but it was actually my parents who suggested it on a whim today. It's a great museum, and with a great number of surprising treasures. Calvin was especially excited about the suits of armor. They set up sketching benches so that patrons could try out their own artistic skills. We enjoyed Greek and Roman artifacts, van Gogh, Picasso, lunch, a textile craft, and artifacts from the ancient Middle East and Egypt. I suspect we'll be back.

That car looks like a grasshopper

We had to make a trip to the airport this morning, and since that brought us more than halfway to the Henry Ford Museum, we decided it warranted a visit. We bought our tickets for the upcoming Titanic Artifacts exhibit, and then spent the morning looking around the newly opened Driving America exhibit. Fun cars, even more fun sets and props, and a couple of interactives to boot. We ate local foods for lunch, built wooden cars on a miniature assembly line, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading outside in this summery spring weather. Good stuff.

Drive-thrus and Drive-ins

"That car looks like a grasshopper"

"and he's talking to the ladybug!"

Working the Ford assembly line