Halifax Museum Weekend

We ended up getting into Halifax for the weekend after all. The Littlest One seemed to be coming around somewhat Friday morning. I still didn't feel really well, either. He slept the whole way in. I didn't knit on the drive in, which is highly unusual. We had to go over to Darmouth first, and I snapped this shot of Ceres container pier on the way over to our hotel. This is where hubby used to go when we had the other truck, and he just hauled local stuff.


By the time we got to the hotel, the Littlest One had quite a fever and immediately crawled into one of the beds and went to sleep. That's all he did for the rest of the day and evening. He woke up a couple of times, but not for very long. I kept pumping the fever medicine into him, but it was a long night. We figured in the morning we'd be carting him to the IWK if he didn't come around. Luckily the fever broke through the night, and he was pretty much his old self.


Train tracks ran right behind the hotel we were in. The kids loved it. This is a container-hauling train, taking cans to Ceres. We also saw two Via Rail passenger trains. It wasn't bad til the first night when one of these looonnnngggg container trains went through at 3:30am. It was loud and shook the whole place.


Through the night Friday we had a bad ice storm. It was hard to get anywhere without breaking your neck. I took this shot of hubby trying to clear the ice off of the windshield with a broken scraper while also trying not to fall on his butt.


We had to go back over to Dartmouth to hubby's office, and the entire yard was ice. If I'd have had skates with me I could have skated around quite awhile. He parked as close to the door as possible without running into anything cuz it was so treacherous.


The first museum was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic where their theme was Pirates! for March break. This is the light from the Sambro Lighthouse. It's near the entrance.


By that is a Theodore Tugboat display.


Beside that was Merlin the Macaw. The kids loved to hear him talk. There were a bunch of army cadets running around, trying to get him to say bad things.


The Oldest One dressed up like a pirate for five seconds, long enough for a picture, but the Littlest One wouldn't do it.


There was a spot where kids could dig for buried treasure. It was a big hit.


Listening to one of the displays about finding treasures in the ocean.


Behind this glass is a real deck chair from the Titanic. There are only a few known to exist. The only thing that was ever done to it was redo the seat (rattan woven stuff). The minister from the Minia was given this chair for his help, and his grandson gave this to the museum. Some of the rescue ships came from Halifax, so the museum has this chair, part of a newel post, and a few other things from the Titanic. There are 150 people buried in Halifax who died from the Titanic, some were identified, some unkown. Most of them are buried in Fairview Cemetery, some at a couple of other Halifax cemeteries. One of the graves in Halifax is of 23 year-old Joseph Dawson. It's marked "J Dawson", so when the movie first came out people started leaving all sorts of flowers and love notes on this grave, thinking it was the character portrayed by Leo. (He wasn't.)


The piece of newel post behind the glass on the left is from the actual Titanic. The part on the right is a replica made from fiberglass. There's a lady in town who has napkins from the Titanic. I can't remember the story of how/where she got them, but I know they are worth a small fortune. (It was too weird, too. When we got back to the hotel room the movie, Titanic, was on TBS! The kids wanted to watch it, of course.)


Second stop was the Museum of Natural History. The Littlest One holding a milk snake. He also got to pet an iguana later on, but there were too many kids for me to get a picture. It was hard enough getting this one. The Oldest One was next.


There were lots of live critters, plus these big robotic ones, too. There was a rattlesnake.


Nile crocodile, complete with babies in her mouth. There was a nest in front of her with babies, too, but I cropped it out.


Iguana.

And a snapping turtle. These all moved, and the kids seemed to really like it.

Before I left I got sucked into picking these up for the boys. Fossils and skeletons inside a block of plaster. Messy.
The Oldest One working on his. It's all out, but I haven't glued it together yet.

The Littlest One working on his. His was much better and easier to do.

Proudly showing off his archaeopteryx.

Happy knitting!