Tuesday, December 08, 2015

The Eruption of Mount Gherkin

I picked up a kit, "somewhere," and simply couldn't give this one to Airman's Attic or put it in storage during the great purge of 2015. I tucked it into the back storage area of the Caboose.

Michael rescued the kit and we set about building our own Exploding Mountain. This was a Smithsonian kit - and we LOVED that it used casting material to build the volcano rather than the old fashioned plaster of Paris.


The next day the Gherkins painted the mountain. Stacia especially liked the glow in the dark paint.

As often happens when you have a cool event or activity planned - it began to rain....and rain and rain for the next several days. We love the rain. Praying it helps with the drought around here.  Mount Gherkin is truly amazing - it has the ability to MOVE....and that it did from spot to spot while we waited for a good day to finish the activity.

Finally - a nice day. We began the eruption right as the camp host stopped by for a visit - he is a retired math teacher/special ops Army guy who has been very friendly to the children. It was fun to share the eruption with him. 





It was fun - not quite as explosive as we'd imagined....well as Michael and the kids had imagined. Being the instigator of many out and out science FAILURES, I was satisfied. They tried Diet Coke and Mentos next....


This was also deemed not to be as spectacular as expected. I, of course, was thrilled it worked at all. This merely proves once again that it pays to monitor your expectations. ::snort::