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Our best childhood vacations probably involved Mickey Mouse, water parks or a favorite roller coaster -- but imagination was what made them all memorable. Channel 2's Ashton Goodell and photographer Rich Jordan went looking for that sense of wonder at the Imaginarium.
Museums often have a bad rep for being too quiet.
“Usually when you go to a museum it's, ‘Hands behind your back, don't touch anything,’” said the museum’s Katie Kelley.
But even in a natural history museum, it's a natural tendency to get a bit rowdy when allowed to touch.
“It takes the heat from your body: different levels mean different heat waves,” said Raven Madison, who was walking past a wall-mounted infrared camera. “I don't remember what it was -- I remembered it in science, and then I forgot.”
The point of the Imaginarium is to jog your memory of concepts learned, but never practiced: things like the movement of air, simple machines with big results, and even a reminder that what comes up must come down. But even surrounded by scientific laws and principles, everyone still tries to defy gravity.
“You jump and it plays it back in super-slow motion -- turns out you can jump way higher than you thought,” said Misa Webber of Cordova.
It may seems like a bit of a stretch, but playing with bubbles doubles as a memorable lesson in surface tension.
In the Earth and life-sciences room, tremors topple buildings and tsunami waves in a tank simulate destruction after an earthquake. There’s even a petting zoo of sorts, stocked with various intertidal animals from around the state.
It's a day trip that takes little imagination to come up with, and no time to remind you that sometimes you have to get out and play.
Contact Ashton Goodell at agoodell@ktuu.com