One of the best perks of Tom’s CSU job are these bi-annual meetings he has to attend where hosting duties rotate amongst the various CSU campuses. Never before had I a reason to stop, much less, stay in places like Bakersfield and Chico; now, these trips are awesome reasons and amazing opportunities to take a couple of days off from work to just hang in a new place with the kids…with the added bonus that nobody has to miss Tom when it comes to dinner and bed time!! So, yes, last time we went to SLO town; this time, it was Chico….
Because Chico is a whopping 4 hours away, we left late Wednesday night so the kids could sleep the trip away. Unfortunately, Cameron woke up just as we arrived (around midnight) and, for some reason, was totally spooked to be in a different place. She cried and complained that she wanted to put her shoes and jacket back on so we could climb back into our car!!! Then, of course, she woke up at the crack of dawn later that morning! Needless to say, she was a challenge. And, she woke Dylan up (at midnight as well as 7am).
Well, this just meant we got a super early start to our day.
On our way into town, we had to go around Depot Park…had no idea what Depot Park had to offer, but I mentioned to Dylan that I’d seen a train car there (non-operational, but perhaps climb-able) and he opted for going there first thing post-breakfast instead of Children’s Playground.
It was a 6-block walk from the hotel and, boy, was I feeling the baby pressure while I pushed that double-stroller along! It turns out that Depot Park is an Amtrak station with a neat-o coffeeshop located inside a renovated train car!
Dylan was pretty stoked. We ordered a nice soy hot chocolate to share and discussed the coolness of the whole coffeshop-in-a-train-car concept.
The barista made beautiful “latte” art which for which Dylan and I expressed much appreciation.
Then, we got a preview of what Dylan might look like if he ever grows a mustache! Oh, and he praised their fine work on putting up “custom” curtains. Dylan is a boy with an aesthetic, for sure–we passed a lightrail car in SJ the other day that has an ad painted all across it and his response was: “oh, that’s too bad. It looks much better plain!”
Cameron also thought it was pretty fun being there, but she was mostly into snacking on her O’s….
Since Depot Park was in the opposite direction of the playground, we had to double-back to get to it. To make things more interesting, we cut across the campus. School is in session, so we saw plenty of students and hubbub…and, of course, student work, including art.
Cameron always perks up when we’re outdoors.
We made it to the playground at around 10:30am or 11am.
Dylan wanted to push Cameron on the swings…and help her across these tricky swaying stool things…and go down slides with her, etc. He’s a sweet big brother.
Then, he wanted to see how high he could go….
After a pretty light snack-y lunch, we crossed a footbridge to get to the Gateway Science Museum.
This place was small (3 rooms), but awesome. The docents were so friendly and helpful and we pretty much had their undivided attention!
We spent the vast majority of our time in the Discovery Room, reading books, playing with various toys (including these magnet toys!) and talking with the docent.
We took a short break to eat more snacks in the amphiteatre area just outside the musuem. Dylan had lots of tricks he wanted to show me! He recently started going back to gymnastics–this time with more enthusiasm as he is in the same class as T. and K. — so he was particularly keen on practicing cartwheels.
After snack, we went back in and explored the Sound Room and the Toy Room. Dylan liked the Toy Room almost as much as the Discovery Room. We learned about linkages, cams, pulleys and completing circuits (this last topic is now pretty familiar to Dylan now that he has his snap circuits).
By this time, we’d been at the museum for a whopping 3+ hours! Cameron was definitely tuckering out. While Dylan was exploring pulleys, she sat down to leaf through a book, then played with some toys before finally climbing up on to this chair and putting her head down! When I asked her how she was doing, she said she wanted to take a nap in the stroller, so she climbed back in and did just that!
Once she was out cold, I was free to play and explore with Dylan. After hitting all of the exhibits in the Toy Room, he still had some steam and wanted to return to the Discovery Room where we built more stuff out of the magnetic toys!
This first day in Chico was Tom’s full day, so we only hooked up with him after 5pm for dinner and a little art time back in the room.
The next day, Cameron “slept in” until 7:30am and so our day started a little on the later side–meaning, we finally headed to breakfast at about 9am!
I’d read that the Yo Yo musuem was free and it sounded kind of interesting, so we went there as soon as it opened.
It was TINY, but attached to an awesome toy store. I had more fun looking at the yo yo’s than the kids did. It turns out Filipinos were pretty involved in yo yo marketing from the very beginning.
I guess it’s just another thing we Filipinos can be proud of (heh heh!).
Oh, yes. Dylan wanted to buy the giant yo yo. And, of course, Cameron was willing to try to help him move it! The lady at the museum/store told me, by the way, that they were actually able to work this yo yo with a big ol’ crane!
The Yo Yo Museum held such little interest for the kids, I began to wonder what I’d do with them until Tom got off from work….
Dylan had so much fun the day before, though, he told me he wanted to do everything we did yesterday. So, we headed back to the park–there’s never anything wrong with a little sunshine and activity!
Cameron loves to spin…and do happy dances…and sing….
Dylan was pretty stoked on this new toy he picked up at the toy store/yo yo museum, he wanted to share the joy with Cameron. She was busy spinning, but you can see that she tried her best to express an interest in Dylan’s new toy!
Again, we took snack breaks! We also fed a couple of other kids at the park…one little girl in particular was especially hungry. After confirming with her dad that it was ok to share something with her, she kept coming back like a hungry pigeon!! Then, her little brother decided to try to help himself to things in our stroller while we were playing on the play structure. I was a bit surprised that the dad didn’t try to stop the boy; he only got him after he started pushing our stroller away!!
Dylan made another little “friend” at the park as well–another 5-year old little boy who invited Dylan to play with him. Being the great big bro that he is, though, he still made time to hang out with Cameron.
It was a short day for Tom, so we stayed at the playground until he got off from work. We ate lunch with Dylan’s park friend before heading across the footbridge to Bidwell Mansion. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, the house wasn’t open! I’d read some of the info on Bidwell to Dylan (he founded Chico, got rich from the Gold Rush, ran for president, donated land to CSU, etc)., so he was really interested in doing a tour and was so disappointed we couldn’t! We just peeked in all of the windows instead….It’s too bad the mansion is slated for complete closure later this year! We’ll probably never get to see it (unless something changes with the state’s park budget and it reopens to the public again).
Before journeying home, we took Tom to Empire Coffee and Tea (Dylan wanted to show it to Tom) where we played some more games of CandyLand and hung out for a little while more. Then, after dinner, we started the long drive home!
On our way out of town, Dylan asked us if we’d be driving all night and when we said we’d get home way past his bedtime, he asked, “oh…so no bedtime stories?” It was so sweet that he wanted to hear one. We ended up downloading Magic Treehouse 1-8 from Audible.com and he enjoyed listening to three stories before he finally decided he was tired enough to sleep!! All in all, another great trip….
