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Published: August 3rd 2011
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It was a full day’s drive from Ottawa to Sudbury on Saturday. We arrived at supper time. We spent the first night in a hotel in Sudbury. Using Claude’s points we stayed in the very nice and very new Homewood Suites for just $5. It was great having a room with a separate bedroom from the boys so we could get some work done in the evening after they went to bed and they could watch cartoons in the morning while we relaxed.
Sunday (Claude’s Birthday), we spent the morning at Dynamic Earth, which is the interpretive center at the Big Nickel lookout. The boys remembered it from past visits and wanted to go back. We did the underground mine tour again this time. Marc decided that he was scared to go underground but we told him he had been there when he was just a baby so he would be okay this time too. They added a mock up of the rescue cage that was used to bring up the Chilean miners, that you could try out. It was certainly tiny. In the interpretive center itself, there was a really facinating show on volcanos. The boys had a great
time in the kids play mine center, and also in trying out the mine equipment operators chairs where you simulate running the mining equipment.
We have been travelling Paul’s mini sunflower from school on all of our trips, so we got a picture of him with it in front of the big Nickel. We will get a photo of it in each province – kind of like our own take on Flat Stanley.
In the afternoon we met up with Claude’s cousin Diane and her daughter Caitlin and went with them to Science North, the science center in Sudbury. Again, Paul remembered it from 3 years ago and wanted to go again. It is a very worthwhile center. The building itself is very neat because it is built right into the Canadian Shield. From the entrance building, you go through a rock tunnel to get to the main part of the science center, and the rock protrudes into the building in the main stariwell area too. The boys had a great time exploring all the exhibits. Marc’s favorite was racing the K-nex cars. We built the cars and he spent most of his time in the center racing
them on the giant electric track. We watched the 4D bushplane movie again. It has the motion and “touch” senasations like the 4D shows at Disneyland. The “snake” at your feet really makes everyone jump! When we had been there 3 years ago, they had a body exhibit and based on your child’s current height and age and parents’ height, it projected what height they would be as adults. It pegged Paul at 6’6”. We rechecked again this time and he is still expected to be 6’-6”! Marc will come in at 6’-5”. It will be interesting to see how accurate it is.
After the science center, we went out to Levack (about 40 mins from Sudbury), to visit Claude’s aunt Georgette (she is also his godmother). We spent the evening with her, Diane and Caitlin as well as his cousin Paulin and her husband Mark. It was fun for Claude to celebrate his birthday at his Aunt’s. Sudbury was a roasting +31 today so it was a very hot visit. We stayed the night with them and then headed on to Sault Ste. Marie the next day. We had planned to get to Wawa, but after stopping in
Sault at the playground for lunch at about 1 pm we decided to call it a day. It was very hot and humid here too and we were all tired from the heat so we made it an early day and stopped in the Sault at a nice hotel with air conditioning and a pool, neither of which we could have got in Wawa.
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