Monday, September 23, 2013

Crayola Attractions

After going to a wedding in New Jersey (my Taiwanese "daughter" Dao Wen and Paul), my daughter, Rebecca, and "daughter", Emily and I were driving back through Pennsylvania when we saw a sign for Crayola Attractions.  We had to go.  It's in Easton, PA where crayons were invented and are made.  Easton is a lovely little town with a town square, interesting restaurants and music.

We weren't sure at first whether we would regret the $16 entrance fee, but soon recognized it was a bargain even for so-called adults.  We had a great time.  We were able to name a crayon color, make our own, multicolored markers and play with Model Magic.  And that was just the first of 4 floors of attractions.  We colored and constructed treasure boxes and pictures with every crayon color imaginable.  We melted crayons and molded them into shapes such as dinosaurs and worms.  We painted with melted crayons and also made spin art pictures with melted crayons.  We took black-and-white outline pictures of ourselves which we could then color or have put on a puzzle or a t-shirt.  We crayoned pictures on cardboard which were then cut into puzzle pieces.  We drew on large light-bright boards and on a computer screen from which we could email the results to ourselves.  There was a giant climbing playroom and some other toys we didn't use, but we played with the boats in the replica of the Erie Canal to see how the locks and other systems worked.  There was a virtual step-on piano keyboard, which later became a step-on xylophone, and later still a game where balls would appear which exploded when stepped on.  There was a wall of virtual crayola men caricatures and if you stood on the rug in front of one, it would do everything you did - wave, jump, bend, etc.  Rebecca, of course, had to challenge it and finally the head of hers popped off and he looked destroyed - only for a minute or so.

In short, it was worth the side trip and the two hours we added to our journey.  The only regret is that we didn't have some little people of our own to play with us.