Monday, July 11, 2011

What We Did Last Weekend


Aside from sitting in the air conditioned house because it's stinkin' hot outside that is.

We had seen a commercial on TV for the Insect Lore Bugseum in Shafter, a little town about 20 minutes from here and thought hey, it's free and even if we don't have kids it looks fun, so on Saturday morning decided to drive on up and check it out. Keith had been wanting to go to the Shafter historical museum that is in their old Depot anyway, so we made a small town museum trip. In the heat.

The Bugseum was really cute and surprisingly busy with lots and lots of small children running about. The Insect Lore company started out in the late 60's sending live butterfly garden kits to kids through mail order and evolved into quite a huge business with butterfly and ladybug nurseries, complete with windows to the nurseries along the wall of the bugseum so you can peek in. They have displays of mounted bugs from all over the world and assorted live creepy crawly things inside display cages. All of the little kids seemed to be having a great time but of course part of that could be all the buggy things you could buy in the gift shop, my favorite of which is a little bug house on a strap to go on your wrist like a watch to keep your live bugs in and carry them around with you.



And the critter carnival with rides for your bugs.


The ant hill.


And the ladybug land where you watch ladybugs grow from larva stage to adult and then let them go so they can eat the bad bugs in your garden.



Even the outside of the building is fun. It looks huge, but most of the inside is taken up by bug nurseries and a huge shipping warehouse.



This is also probably the nicest looking building in the whole town. You know how some little towns are really charming with cute main streets and shady sidewalks? Not Shafter, sorry Shafter people.

Tomorrow, the other highlights from our little road trip. If you can call them highlights.

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