Childhood is a time of obsessive activity, especially for playtime. Your younger grandchildren may be devoted to the Old West for weeks, then fall in love with rockets. Tweens are following the latest music at an age when all this author cared about was Frank Malzone's batting average. (Editor's note: Malzone was a Major-League leading third baseman.) The following ten specialty attractions are full of activities that appeal to a variety of interests; they are not kitschy roadside schlock where Clark Griswold would have taken his family in National Lampoon’s Vacation. They're sites of significance where grandparents and grandchildren can learn and have fun together.
Children touring the Eric Carle Museum |
1. Children's author and illustrator Eric Carle, of
The Very Hungry Caterpillar fame, is the brainchild behind
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass. Your grandchildren may recognize illustrations — right at their eye level — from their favorite picture books. One grandfather quizzed his grandkids after they looked at a Carle original. First, he told them to turn away from the illustration. Then, he asked, "How many toes did the hippo in that picture have?" Visitors can create their own art in a studio, watch shows in the auditorium, or read a kids' classic in the library.
2. On San Francisco's Fisherman’s Wharf, the Musée Mécanique displays an assemblage of 200 working antique, mechanical coin-operated amusements, items like the circa-1929 fortune teller that entertained your grandparents. Owner Dan Zelinsky says, "Kids might come in liking the modern games, but they discover the old ones are more fun." The grandchildren with us favored a toy steam shovel from the mid-1950s that scoops up gumballs for kids to keep. Grandparents might want to distract the youngsters before tossing a coin into the "sex-appeal meter."
3. Grandchildren cannot watch any episode of American Idol without hearing classic songs that you grew up with. Detroit's Motown Historical Museum is frozen in the late 1950s. Hard to believe that the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and so many others recorded their megahits in this cozy garage-turned-recording studio. This turn-back-the-clock tour to the Mesozoic age of music technology is sure to awe grandchildren. And wait until they see Grandpa and Grandma "volunteer" to become a Supreme or a Temptation, complete with choreography.
Viewing the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument |
4. Call it historypallooza. This sound-and-light extravaganza officially called
The Great Platte River Road Archway straddles — yes, straddles — Interstate 80 in Kearney, Neb., and relates a splashy and brassy tale of Western migration. Film and computer graphics make viewers feel as though they are "really there." One boy ducked as a herd of stampeding virtual buffalo charged toward him; the wooly mammals veered to the right and to the left, and the boy raised his head and smiled. Grandparents will enjoy a visit to a mock-up of a working drive-in theater representing the early years of interstate travel.
5. Grandparents and grandchildren take on secret identities at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., where they have to answer questions about their "identity" before they leave. They can also act like spies by crawling through ductwork to peek at visitors below. The entrance to the Cold War-era is a faux tunnel, replicating a real tunnel created by British and American army engineers in Berlin. But visitors seem most thrilled by gadgetry such as James Bond's Aston Martin from Goldfinger, and the real-life gun in a lipstick container used by female KGB agents.
6. Your preschool-grandchildren may make beaded masks and feathery costumes to celebrate Mardi Gras. But they can visit the real things in the Presbytere, part of the Louisiana State Museum, in New Orleans, which relates the long (and child-appropriate) history of Mardi Gras. Thanks to virtual reality, you and your grandchildren can play the role of float-riders gazing at the throngs on the streets below. Eyeball the elaborate costumes and faux jewelry and imagine for a few minutes what it's like to be Carnival royalty.
7. Are your grandchildren into rockets? A big one, a deactivated Titan II missile in its original silo, is the focal point of the Titan Missile Museum, south of Tucson, Ariz. During our tour, guide Chuck Penson let a girl play commander, while a boy became her deputy. He then told them the Titan could destroy a city. To calm jittery young nerves, Penson stated that every procedure had backup upon backup upon backup.
8. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame in Seattle takes you to worlds of rockets and robots. In one gallery, renowned robots converse with one another, while elsewhere on a mega-screen, three-dimensional rockets, including the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, and the animated Planet Express from the cult TV hit Futurama fly toward you. Microsoft’s Paul Allen founded this museum that utilizes the latest technology — naturally.
Children can participate in creativity workshops at the Charles Schulz Museum |
9. Charles Schulz drew from his heart, which is why his work appeals to all ages. At the
Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, Calif., Schulz's insight into human behavior might astound you, while your grandchildren laugh at the absurdity of a beagle flying an airplane. The museum's rarest relic is a bedroom wall Schulz painted with Peanuts characters for his toddler daughter in the 1950s. Ask your youngest grandchildren where they think the red door at the wall’s base might lead. Or let them draw on their own creativity in a kids' studio.
10. As your grandchildren dig in the fossil pit at the Hall of Dinosaurs in Price, Utah's, The College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum, you can learn why the prehistoric mammoth and the saber-tooth tiger belong in the museum’s Hall of Man. Of the 20-odd dinosaurs reconstructed here, the biggest are the allosaurus and Utahraptor (like the velociraptors in Jurrasic Park). Local dinosaur tracks on display confirm that present day Utah was once a prehistoric stomping ground.
Related Information
While filming The Princess Diaries several years ago, actress Julie Andrews tested her strength on an antique mechanical arm-wrestling machine at the Musee Mecanique — and won!
At the International Spy Museum, we learned that Ian Fleming’s spy novels inspired real people in the intelligence community to design devices similar to those in the James Bond books, like tire-slashers and bulletproof shields for high-security vehicles.
A ten-cent Baby Ruth candy bar has been sitting three slots over from the right in an early 1960s vending machine at the Motown Museum for four decades. The Baby Ruth held that place so blind singer Stevie Wonder could always find his favorite sweet snack.
Track more dinosaurs in Utah, find more San Francisco Fun, and discover even more to do in Washington, D.C. on a Capitol Trip for 10-Year-Olds.
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