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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Mitchell Park Domes!

Hola darlings! Today dondelion and I visited Mother Newton and later we visited the newly revamped Domes! It was much colder today than yesterday, brrrr. Yesterday was a day of rain and fog and massive amounts of melting snow! Then yet another weather system came through late last night or very early this morning - WHOOSH! - and it was back to Winter! Fortunately for us, the melt-off yesterday melted all of the accumulated snow from Christmas Eve Day! It was something amazing, actually. When the taxi pulled up to the house the evening of 12/26 bringing us home from the airport, the roads in the subdivision were still snow-covered and slippery. But it was already warming up amazingly, and the snow-caused fog was even then getting thicker by the moment. Indeed, by Saturday morning the Milwaukee airport was intermittently closed due to poor visibility. Today dawned cold and bright and crisp. We headed out around 10 AM and got back home about 5 PM. The Domes have been newly revamped! The metal structures of the geodesic domes were reinforced and damaged triple-pane glass replaced here and there -- restoring more than 40 years wear and tear! The interior public spaces were revamped too. The bathrooms were totally redone and enlarged, very nice (well, at least the ladies' room was very nice, dondelion didn't notice anything in particular about the mens' room! The ladies room had new sinks and stalls, and additional space, new flooring, and a new paint job.) The terracotta tiled floors were restored and/or redone in parts, everything got repainted, the ceiling was totally replaced, new lighting and benches were put into place, the admissions booth was relocated to the center of the entrance rather than the right side, the doors were replaced, the gift shop was relocated. And - get this - the admission price was lowered! I remember distinctly the last visit dondelion and I had to the rather sad and worn looking Domes - although the interior presentations of the Domes was still as fantastic as ever! I don't exactly remember the admission charge, but I know it was a bit more than $7 each. Now the admission has been lowered to $5 -- or maybe it was just lowered for the holidays? -- I hope the lowered admission is permanent because the displays in the Domes are spectacular and at $5 many more people will come. Indeed, there were lots of people there today when we arrived, shortly before 2:30 PM. The line moved quickly and I was really impressed with the improvements in the appearance of the place. More tomorrow. It's late here, I have to work tomorrow early, I'm working on my laptop after my wireless network crashed on 12/24 - I don't EVEN want to go there, darlings. Time to call it a night.

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