Mississippi Museum of Natural Science

In an extreme act of bravery- Caroline, Megan, and I took the 4 kids to the Museum of Natural Science in Jackson today. The museum is delightful, and it’s Little Ernie’s favorite (this is our 4th visit in the last year). All the kids love it and the museum is housed inside a state park that also has an amazing playground. So the bravery was not in taking the kids to the museum, the bravery was in doing the drive to get there. Hattiesburg, for all it’s virtues, really and truly does not have much entertainment to offer besides the movie theatre and restaurants. The other choices then, while still limited, require us to drive either north to Jackson (1 hr 40 min away) or south to Gulfport (1 hr 30 min away). Also, Mississippi doesn’t really have interstates, so to get anywhere we have to drive on 4 lane highways that have really high speed limits, pass through lots of small towns with unexpected stop lights, and vigilantly watch for people pulling on and off the highway. To drive these roads safely requires vigilance and it’s not a good idea to drive while distracted.

The drive to Jackson today was not the problem- the problem was the drive home. The kids were exhausted, hungry and BORED. We stopped for food on the way out of town, but it never settled them down. While we were driving they kept looking at the GPS and calculating, literally every 2 minutes, how many minutes we had left until we got home. It was way worse than “are we there yet?”, because if the GPS recalculated and added 1 or 2 minutes to the trip length- there was weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. There was also hyper giggling- which is not the good kind of giggling, because it always leads to tears and someone getting hurt. After the giggling phase passed, it was replaced with the crying and moaning phase. Sigh.

Well, at least Megan got some good pictures of the kids.