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::
