OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) has an exhibit named Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination.
Since we were taking Toby to the airport anyways, OMSI was sort of in the area. Max and Lucy and I dropped Toby off and bid her good flight. We had about 90 minutes to kill before the museum opened and so we leisurely found a Noah’s bagel shop and had breakfast bagels (chocolate chip with chocolate milk, of course). We drove around looking a church / castles and the river and it was about 9:45a when we got to the museum and boy was it packed. We spent about 30 minutes in line, just to get admission tickets. By the time we got our tickets, they were printing tickets for 12:00 entrance into the Star Wars exhibit. Because there was such a long time before Star Wars admission, I spent an extra $10 for the Millenium Falcon Speed of Light exhibit/ride. I thought that doing this would be fun and help Max to wait patiently for the real Star Wars exhibit. Boy was I wrong. We waited almost an hour in line. It was only as I got to the front that I realized why this was taking so long. They only had four seats per 5 minute ride. Ugh! I told the ride operator (who was very nice) that I would sit both Max and Lucy on my lap so we only needed 1 chair. We got in a bit earlier. Looking back, it was a pretty cool use of sight and sound simulation, but at the time I was feeling a bit ripped off. In the end, Max got his Millenium Falcon pin and he was happy. It was the Millenium Falcon pin that prevented him from abandoning the line altogether. All in all, I wish I hadn’t spent the $10 on these tickets and we had just examined the other exhibits in the museum. 20 more minutes in line finally brought us inside the exhibit. The Star Wars exhibit itself was fantastic. 2 huge rooms full of hands on stations (build your own robot, control robot legs, etc), visual displays and characters walking around to take picures with (storm troopers and jawas). Too bad we had used up all of Max’s energy waiting in lines. After a total of 25 minutes he was asking to be done and go home. sigh. There was so much that I didn’t get to see because I was picking Lucy up off the floor or telling Max how cool something was. I guess that is what happens when you take the kids to the museum and wait in line a total of 120 minutes for 30 minutes of exhibits.
In an effort to extend Max’s time in the exhibit, I let him take pictures with the camera. He was doing a good job until he dropped it. Here is an example of the photos he shot. This is the type of picture you take when you are 4 feet tall and the displays begin about 18 inches off the ground.
