20110807

Hall of Flame

On Saturday we celebrated Will being home (for one whole day) by going to the Hall of Flame in Tempe. This is a really cool museum filled with the history of fighting fires. The museum lends you a black binder that tells about all of the displays. We didn't get to read much, because the girls were pressing us forward. I would have liked to read more about some of the more fascinating items.

The museum is set up so that you start by seeing the really old fire fighter things, like hand pulled carts/water pumps. Many from the 1800s. Some were pulled by horses, and of course Gwennie loved the fake horse that they had on display to show how the carts were pulled. She did not like that the horse had no mane, though. See how they use fire hydrants to hold up the chains? Such a cool idea!
This cart was really shiny and had so many things going on. Many of them were much more plain and simple. One room was filled with display cases of helmets, some of the earliest ones were made of leather and sewn together. The helmets were from all over the world and for the past few centuries. Many German and Japanese helmets were included.

There was a real firetruck to climb on and real firefighter clothes and hats to put on. We all dressed up.Even me, I was the chief. Here is one of those trampoline things you see in the movies when the people jump out of burning buildings! So cool.
Towards the end there is a play area for the kids. They had this small fire truck with dress-up clothes in Gwennie's size which she enjoyed a lot more than dressing up in the adult-sized clothes (did I mention those jackets are heavy?) There was a pole (like in the movies) for sliding down. But Rhayn had to show her mad climbing skills by going up to hit a board that was sort of at the top. It must be to stop kids from climbing that pole to the ceiling, since this room also houses fire trucks, so it has vaulted ceilings. Will also had to show his mad skills, though it was a lot easier for him, since he is bigger.
And Gwennie wanted to do it as well. Only it took her a lot of tries before she made it to the top. But she finally did and then she had to show us a few more times.
After the pole climbing, we looked at the wild fire room, and headed out of the museum. I had been craving a curry for a while, with all of the fixings (papadum, chutneys, pakora, raita, soups and kheer) so we headed to Pasand for their buffet. It was delicious and Natalie was well behaved at the restaurant enough that we were all able to enjoy our tasty lunch.

It was a great day out! For dinner, Rhayn made us all her specialty- lemony, pan-seared shrimp with pasta.

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