Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Vacation - Day 5
Today, we visited Call of the Wild, Michigan's greatest collection of ferocious, stuffed animals. The kids always enjoy this place. They love browsing through he gift shop, and the museum offers a freebie scavenger hunt with a prize for everyone who successfully completes it. (This time, it was a smiley face sticker. I mean, come on. At least give the kids something that's not a totally embarrassing piece of junk.) We all had a fun time.
I've always had a soft spot in my heart for this joint. It was always one of those places that I begged my parents to take me, but we never had time. We were always traveling through to someplace else. Finally, they did end up taking me. Man, I remember feeling so excited! This was going to be incredible! I couldn't wait to see all of those wild animals. I was a bit confused to see that the animals were all sorta dead. Oh well. I stayed the course. After all, this was Call of the freakin' Wild. The living, ferocious animals had to be later on in the tour. My anxiety began to rise as I continued through the museum and every creature I saw was completely lifeless. Finally, I hit the end of the tour, and another childhood dream came to a bitter end. I left wiser, finally understanding the meaning of "tourist trap." Since then, I've rechristened the place, "Call of the Mild". In the years since, I've overcome my bitterness enough to appreciate Call of the Wild for what it is.
Unfortunately, we had to cut today's visit short as Aidan needed some pull-up attention, and we had forgotten to bring along the diaper bag. So, we returned to the lake house for fresh pants, a steak dinner, and a visit to Nibbles for some ice cream.
Tomorrow, we're either taking a day trip to Mackinac or a visit to Traverse City and the nearby Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes.
# posted by Tim @ 11:34 PM 
