DARTing around town

Wednesday was free day at the museum of art here, so I decided we should check it out. I also decided it would be a good idea to take the train downtown. So we had ourselves an adventure, riding "Toby" according to H and "James" according to L. Then we transferred to a bus and got dropped off at the back entrance of the museum and spent an hour wandering around in it.

My kids aren't amazing artists, I know that. They don't have any special interests in it so far, but I think its good to make it an option. They just weren't interested in looking at art really. We spent a lot of time in the India sculptures since DH is in India for a few more days, so that held their interest. But the paintings weren't worth their time and so we mostly ran around in the courtyard and down the big long hall. (What is it with art museums and big long halls that kids aren't supposed to run in?) At least running in the courtyard was okay, though I had to tell them that some things were pieces of art, not toys - like the pile of white rocks in a circle shape.

It was a fun adventure. But when we went to catch the bus back to the train station, well, I got us lost. There wasn't a bus stop opposite where the bus had dropped us off! So we started walking and found a bus stop for the right bus, but got there right after watching it drive by. I decided I didn't want to wait for it to come and we'd start walking toward the train station and catch the bus further up. Well, after we came to the highway and were crossing over it, I should have headed back. But no, I kept going. We got to the next bus stop and the bus we needed was no longer listed. Oops.

I decided to wait there and ask the next bus that came if it would take us, sure that we must be close. But he said we were headed the wrong direction and to take a train on the opposite side of the street. So we went across the street and waited. And waited and waited and waited. No bus for about 20 minutes. H fell asleep sitting up and almost fell over. L told me we were never going to make it home. I noted that it had been an hour now since we left the museum, and we should be home by now. Ooops.

The bus finally came and took us to the train station...1 block past where we had missed the bus originally. (Apparently it wasn't the bus we needed and we had one more block to the train station.) D'oh! Well, we rode the train back and had a nice trip overall, despite our family circus like traversings of downtown.

The map shows our path, one blue square being where we exited the museum, and one being where we finally caught the train. The red squares are on either end of the bus trip we took and the blue/purple dots show our walking path.


H actually did sleep on my shoulder for a while waiting for the bus, but woke up and was wide awake for the bus/train trip. Those were the highlight of the day for him. But when we got back in the car to drive the rest of the way home, he was gone pretty fast.