Scotty's birthday, Part One

I am still going to post the after cleanup pics from Scott's room...but first, let's celebrate his 11th birthday, shall we? :)

Scott's birthday is actually November 22nd, which is on Friday. We were all in need of some time out of the house, so we decided to go and celebrate with him a little early. We have more fun stuff planned for him...this was just the first part of his birthday.

Last September, we went to the Technik Museum in Speyer. It's a technology/transportation museum...and it's insanely cool. They have a second museum in a town called Sinsheim which is about an hour and a half away. How was it? Awesome! We all give it an enthusiastic thumbs up!

"Hi, Maya!"

Scott with a Russian transport plane

We ate dinner in the restaurant that's behind the kids and this very attractive bull.

This museum was much like the one in Speyer...and that's why we wanted to visit, because we all liked the first one so much. There are so many planes, trains and automobiles here...plus motorcycles and scooters, bikes, lawn equipment, unicycles...The list goes on and on and on. 

They had a big display about Hollywood Cars of the Stars.

 1950's Corvette

This is Stephen King's Christine...or would be if it was painted red.

Pink Thunderbird

This was pretty cool...we saw a Delorean like the one they used in Back to the Future. Steven and I grew up on that trilogy, and they've been a big hit in our house, too...especially with Scott.

This was wild. Here's a car that was used by the mob. It's got cut outs for guns...and a lot of bullet holes.

Notice the two Colorado license plates?

This is like a huge jukebox. You put Euro in to hear it play. Very cool.

I have no hope of journaling this post with any accuracy at all. I know nothing about cars, or planes...or basically anything automotive. Give me a cathedral or a castle and I'll research the heck out of it. This stuff I'm not so good at. What I can tell you is that both of my boys were incredibly entertained by this trip. I know I will mistakenly leave photos out that they would want me to include so I will apologize ahead of time. I'll give it my best shot. (I'll see if I can't get some help from both Scott and Steven, the car experts.) It sure was fun to see them so jazzed.

WWII German dive bomber

Here's more musical entertainment.

This bus used to carry people all over Paris for many, many years.

They have places where you can climb up and get photos from above. The museum is really amazing because no matter where you look you see something new. You can stand in the same place for ten minutes and keep seeing something else you hadn't seen before.

Darn he's handsome.

Even though neither Mylee nor I are knowledgeable about cars or planes, we found this museum to be incredibly interesting and fun, too. It's a lot like the television show Top Gear. Maya and I don't care so much about all the stats and history behind the cars...but still we are very entertained and rarely pass on a chance to watch an episode. We were at the museum for about five hours...and it was five hours well spent.

When Steven bought our admission tickets, he included an IMAX film. When I asked him what we were seeing he told me he didn't know. I'd seen on the web page that they had some films in English. Ours was not...but that's okay. We figured it out and in not too long, we won't be hearing German anymore. We saw Die Arktis 3D: Heimat der Eisbären. (That's The Arctic 3D: Home of the Polar Bears for you English speakers out there.) Polar bears are pretty cute whether they're in German or English, and I particularly like the word Eisbären.

This portion of a carousel was above a snack shop and outside of the IMAX theater.

After the movie, we went to another part of the museum. There are playgrounds and rides set up for smaller kids and a big slide coming down from this plane. The kids and Steven rode down the slide at Speyer, but no one was interested this time around.

Cruisin'

The bottom of the big plane slide.

This is a bicycle made for...twelve!

I got a better picture of it later in the day. This was probably one of my most favorite things in the museum. :) I'm not even sure why but I sure would like to see twelve people try to ride this thing.

Speaking of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson owns one of these...It's a Ford GT.

My, oh, my. Scott would have stayed right here for the rest of the day and been quite content. I took more pictures of these cars a bit later, too.

Scott and a Lamborghini Countach. There's a F 40 Ferrari back there, too.

Groovy.

This was called the Picture Point. I wasn't feeling real comfortable about hauling our Nikon up there but the kids thought it might be interesting to climb up.

Steven loves this car. It's a Panterra.

Have you ever seen a motorized unicycle? Well, now you have.

There is a photo of Adolf Hitler sitting in a car just like this next one, only it's black.

This next shot is for GG. Look, mom...sewing machines!

Jaguar E Type

Right about here is where we all got hungry and decided to take a break. We thought about leaving the museum and finding a restaurant. Then we decided we weren't quite done yet and chose to eat right there.

Steven and I had eaten spaghetti at the Speyer museum and it was really good. When I saw it on the menu here, I decided to order it. Good choice!

Steven took a bite and said I messed it up with the cheese.

The rest of my brood chose Schnitzel mit Pommes. We've become quite fond of Schnitzel...and who doesn't like fries?

Gary Gabelich broke the land speed record traveling 622.407 mph in The Blue Flame on October  23,1970. He drove this rocket powered vehicle on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and held the record for 13 years.

Okay, so I told you I had a better picture of that bicycle made for twelve...and here it is.

Remember when I said this was a technology/transportation museum? Here's Steven looking at a bit of the technology after hours of transportation. Maya thinks this is a hoot.

This is the Magnum P.I. Ferrari. See...I know some things about cars. :)

I love the headlights on this car. They look like owl eyes.

Rolls Royce

Scott is big fan of Audi's. He loved this Audi 60.

Here's another Top Gear reference...(we do watch the show a lot.) Clarkson drove a car just like this in the Porsche challenge. It's a 944.

And Poppa, I took this one for you. Why? Because Steven told me to.

We had a lot of fun at the Technik Museum Sinsheim. I'll blog again in the next few days and share the second half of our celebration for Scotty's 11th birthday.