our weekend

At the Drive-In

On Saturday night, Kraig and I went to the Skyview Drive-In move theater in Belleville, IL. We saw the Sorcerer's Apprentice and Inception. Before going into the movies, we stopped at the grocery store and bought snacks! Kraig had sushi, and I had chicken wings. I can only imagine how much that would have cost at a normal theater!
It was really fun to sit in our car and watch the movies. However, we went to the wrong screen at first, and there was also a thunderstorm! So, we had to watch the movies through windshield wipers. It was still fun. I do suggest to get out of your car and walk around between movies though.. otherwise your butt falls asleep!!!
On Sunday, we went to the St. Louis Science Center to see two of their special exhibits. One was called Real Pirates, and the other was about Charles Darwin. Both were very interesting. The pirate exhibit showcased the story of the pirate ship, Whydah, which sank off of Cape Cod. It was discovered in the 1980s, and is the only pirate ship that has ever been found. We thought that was interesting because we had no idea that no others had been discovered. I think it is probably because not a lot of pirate ships sank in the first place, and most ships probably were used by others once the pirates were gone.
In the exhibit, we got to see canons and guns retreived from the sea floor. We also got to see the Whydah's bell and the pirate's treasure! Aaarrrrghh me mateys. We got to touch some of the pirate treasure too! We learned that a lot of the people that became pirates were sailors trained by the navy. Sailors were treated really poorly and paid next to nothing at the time, so most turned to a life of piracy which promsied treasure. Also, the atmosphere on a pirate ship was much better. There were more workers- so less work, the pirates elected their own captains, and pirate ships were ethnically diverse. It was very common for African Americans to be pirates and they were treated equally on the pirate ship, unlike back on land where they were slaves. The other thing that i found interesting was that if the ship did not have a surgeon- the carpenter took over his duties! That must be how the peg leg was invented.  :)
The Darwin exhibit was very interesting. I found that I already knew most of what was presented, but it was a nice refresher course for my college bio days. I love Darwin. I think it is amazing that he figured out what he did without having all of the fancy gadgets and electron microscopes that we have now. He just used his own curiosity, sense of adventure, a limited knowledge of geology, and deductive reasoning from his observations to figure out his theory of evolution by natural selection. Whatever one believes- whether they believe in evolution or not- this theory is pretty much the closest thing to "fact" in the science world. It is not debated amongst scientists, and discoveries in the last centuries have only brought more proof for the theory- like genetics, the discovery of DNA, population studies, bacteria and antibiotics. What can I say- I had a great time. It was a very scienc-y/nerdy day for me :)

Afterwards we ate at Fitz Bottling Works. The food was definitely lacking.. and our frosted mugs for our root beer were definitely not frosted- but it was cool to see the Fitz soda pop being bottled (I refuse to just call it "soda" and turn my back on my upbringing). Fitz root beer was invented in the 1950s. The bottles moved around on conveyer belts, as seen below.

(above) After the bottles get filled

(Left) The bottles get shaken up to mix the syrup (Right) The bottles continue down the conveyor belt