Went to downtown Manhattan, KS, (travelled light, so all photos were taken with my old iPhone). We stopped by the library and tried to go to the Salvation Army op/thrift shop but it was closed (hopefully just for that Saturday). Downtown felt really empty, almost ghost town-like, although not as deserted as K-State during Thanksgiving. I blame the fun run or the pleasant day enticing people out and away from the city.
We did a teeny bit of shopping at the mall before stopping in at Sparrow for some coffee and a light lunch. We needed refueling before we went to the Discovery Center, which we had almost all to ourselves - it's usually pretty packed on Saturdays.
The Discovery Center was a hit with Jimmy, as always. And so was the bus! We caught the bus in the morning but it was the afternoon bus driver who was happiest to see us. That's right, it was Jimmy's favourite bus driver! Unfortunately for her, 2 year olds can be a little shy if they haven't seen someone for a while, which was the case, but Jimmy did warm up and gave her a high five when we departed. Oh and yes, Jimmy sat in a seat all on his own for the very first time, and yes, he was wearing his seatbelt.
On Sunday evening we went to a farewell barbeque/grill for a visiting PhD student. It was supposed to be last weekend, but it was going to be unpleasant. Sunday may have been rather hot, but out by Tuttle Creek Dam and in the evening, it really wasn't so bad. Jimmy tried to push everything that he could push... I think he was just excited to be outside (he'd been inside all day because of the heat).
It's really nice out at Tuttle Creek Dam, and there's camping too. Not having a car means that we miss out on it most of the time, which is sad, especially as
Jimmy loved the spot that was chosen and really enjoyed running around. It was lovely watching him wander off and explore the area, but I was also keeping a sharp eye on him because he is a toddler and things happen in the blink of an eye... Fortunately, Jimmy managed to remain injury free (unless you count the tiny splinter we found on Monday night, which was out by Tuesday morning).
There were lots of cooks, so I was free to hang out with Jimmy and keep him away from the barbeque and Michael made good use of the light and found a few Geocaches. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The evening was almost perfect, which was especially important for a farewell event.
The only thing that wasn't perfect was the amount of cloud cover: the PhD student wanted to see the sun setting, but the clouds were over the horizon. I prefer to think of it as "enough cloud cover to make it interesting", but that's a sentiment from an old job... We were out late and Jimmy managed to stay awake in the car. He wasn't interested in having a bath, but we still managed to clean him up, even if we were physically exhausted. It was a good weekend.
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