Cows and Gizmos

A while back, before school got out for the summer, I promised Luke and Elizabeth that we’d go back to The Imagination Workshop sometime during summer vacation. “Sometime before you go to camp,” I promised them. We’d gone once before, almost exactly a year ago, and we’d loved it.

A few days ago Luke reminded me that they were leaving for camp on the 19th, and we hadn’t gone to the Workshop yet. D’oh! So I decided we could squeeze that in amongst the errands I needed to run in Temec yesterday.

We were about 30 minutes into our commute down the hill when I got a call from the caretaker at Trinity: the Mighty Herd was loose and wandering down a paved road. Groan! I did a U-turn and headed back to help catch them.

It was baffling, because I had JUST walked the entire fenceline the previous afternoon, so I knew the pasture was sound. How in the world had the cows pushed their way out?

After the caretaker and I had gotten them back inside I hiked back down the fence again, looking for clues, and discovered that the cows hadn’t pushed their way out at all.

All five strands of wire had been cut. There were quad tracks leading up to the break in the fence, and leading away again in a in a slightly different direction. Quad, not truck, so this wasn’t a theft attempt. Just a case of malicious mischief.

I had a little roll of baling wire and my fencing pliers in the car already (because I’m all MacGyvery that way) (and also it’s been way too long since I’ve cleaned out my car), so I showed the caretaker what I’d found, patched up the fence, and continued on down to Temecula.

First stop: my haircut. I do love a shiny new haircut.

And then the Imagination Workshop, and it was just as cool as we remembered!

Elizabeth and The Impossible Triangle. A different camera angle reveals the secret:

Behold Infinity (and my new haircut) in the Kaleidoscope Room!

Luke is so completely in his element in this place. The gadgets, the gizmos, the whangdoodles!!

Elizabeth is mostly just inspired to get in touch with her inner goofball.

Anyway, we had a ball and I’m glad I made time for it, even if it was about 10pm by the time we’d finished all our errands and made it home.

I can’t believe summer vacation is halfway over already. Where does it GO? Clearly there is some sort of warp in the time-space continuum at work here.

I’m sure Luke will get it all figured out someday, and invent a device to counteract the effect.