Second Day of Family Vacation

 

The last time I visited Cosmos Mystery Area was May 1968; Hubby visited in May 1965. Neither of the kids had been there, so it was on our visit list this trip. 

Notice how we are all clinging to the wall. A number of people attempted to enter the first house, but couldn't. The crooked construction (optical illusions) really messes with one's balance and equilibrium.

It was comical to watch people trying to get into the building...

and then see them standing crooked.

M is on the left of the balanced board and is definitely shorter (in normal conditions) than the boy on the right. The tour guide asked them to change places...

...and now M looks at least as tall or taller than the other boy. The tennis ball on the board is to demonstrate he board is level.

Miss W volunteered very willingly to drop a bean bag on an X on the floor. Notice the stairs. The tour guide placed a tennis ball on the stairs and it did not roll. During each of the guide's demos explaining how it was level when it wasn't, M kept saying to us, "It isn't real. It's fake!" 

We all enjoyed the experience but admitted it took some time to get rid of the feeling of 'messed up' balance after we left the hill and mystery houses.

Following the Mystery tour, we chose a geode and broke it.

We could choose one from their box or...

...dig in the sand for one.

an elongated one

the lighter 'rocks' have a hollow center

a device applied pressure and broke the rock in two

M's geode

clear quartz crystals

my geode

I thought the geode activity would be interesting because I bought geodes for the g'kids for Christmas two years ago. The rock was in a cloth bag and the instructions said to hit it with a hammer. A normal hit did nothing but a hard hit smashed the rock into many pieces. No geode crystals were visible after their hammering. Now they know how a geode is supposed to look.