Indiana Jones, the Exhibit

I'm a little behind (and out of order) with my postings.  

My birthday fell on a Sunday this year and we decided to celebrate the day before.  There was an exhibit in Santa Ana called, Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology.  It was at the Discovery Cube and I made Sean take me.  Sean's not as keen as me when visiting museums so I try to find exhibits that would sort of pique his interest too.  The last exhibit we went to was the Cleopatra exhibit and he enjoyed that one.  I thought Indiana Jones would be another success.

I was right.

I thought this exhibit would be more about archaeology and less about the movies but it ended up being about 30% archaeology and 70% movie information.  We had a really cool guide that not only provided audio but also video information.

They had a great interactive activity that you could participate in throughout the entire exhibit.  In the beginning you swiped your handheld guide over a symbol on a short obelisk.  It would then bring up information on your device.  You picked an artifact (it was a cartoon pottery vessel) and were told that there are 10 pieces throughout the exhibit that will complete your broken vessel.  So as you went through the exhibit you had to look for the short obelisks and swipe your guide to be given your task.  When you completed a task you received an additional part of your vessel.  The tasks varied from being easy to complicated.  They also were not the same for each person.  Sean and I never had the exact same task.  The simplest was a matching game.  There was a picture of the holy grail in three sections and each section was a different style and you had to swipe each section until the entire goblet was the same style.  The tricky part was that you had to be smart enough to match it with the goblet that was on display.  The more complicated ones used readers in the walls where you had to swipe your device over the wall to get the right clue or information.  One of my favorites was going into this angular room where on your device you were given a map of the room.  There were artifacts attached to the walls and you had to go swipe your device over the artifact that is showing up on the map on your device.  It was fun watching people walking around the room trying to complete the task because many of them were not reading their maps right.  Another twist was that they went in different orders for each person which frustrated the individuals who just copied each other.  Sean got really into this game.  I thought it was brilliant, entertaining adults and kids!  We found all our pieces and were able to complete our vessels. 

This was the completed vessel!

It was fun to see props and costumes from the movies.  They also had lots of behind the scene information.  One tidbit I liked was that for the third movie the German blond (cant remember her name) didn't have a problem filming with real rats (you remember that sewer scene?!) because she loved rats.  She had no problem having them crawl all over her.  I would!  Also, I liked how Cate Blanchett picked her outfit for her character.  She apparently was very opinionated on what her character was like which really pleased the director/producers.  There were some interactive activities at the end of the exhibit that reflected scenes from the movies like pulling yourself up on a rope and figuirng out the weight of a gold statue.

Overall the Cube is geared only towards kids.  Sean enjoyed the small hockey exhibit but the only reason we were there was for the Indiana Jones exhibit.  We saw a lot of adults that were there for the same reason.  There were several older guys with buddies and a couple of people even dressed up in hats and whips (yes, these were the adults).  As soon as we got through the exhibit Sean expressed how much he liked it.  I was a little taken aback because usually I have to ask him first how and what he liked.  He must have really enjoyed it!  Win-win! 

Afterwards we went to Red Lobster for a tasty dinner.  The following day was when Sean made my cake (I still made the frosting, he hasn't mastered Seven Minute Frosting) and I opened gifts.  It was the perfect birthday!