Road Trip

Today I travelled to The Ben Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to see the King Tut exhibit. It was truly worth the trip.

The exhibit was well laid out with information posted high on all sides of a display to make reading easier. I learned a bit of Egyptian history. I knew that King Tut was a child (9 years old) when he became king, but I didn't know he reigned for 10 years, I thought it was a much shorter time, after all he is known as the "boy king".

I was also reminded that the members of Howard Carter's team of archeologists all succombed to the curse and died shortly after entering the tomb, although logical people dispute the curse.

What I found amazing was the sculpture which has lasted over 3000 years and was done without the benefit of modern tools. The pryamids were built without power tools and they are still standing.

If you were royalty it was a wonderful time to be alive. If not, then not so good. There were two classes of people in those days - royalty and slave.

After our history lesson, we went to the science center. There is a giant heart which describes the progress of the blood through it. I took a walk through this heart, it was quite a trip up and down stairs and all the time hearing the thump, thump of a beating heart.

I also checked a pulse rate machine. The object is to sit still, hold on to two handles and listen to various sounds which included a gun shot, yelling, etc. Sad to say, I flatlined. I guess the machine was out of order since I'm sitting here writing this.

All in all, it was a good day. I think I'm going to add Philadelphia to the list of places to go. That will be an easy trip, it's only an hour away from home.