On Fridays, my kids and I pile in the car and go on Field Trips, aka, Field Trip Fridays. This year's theme is small towns in Nebraska. The first town that we visited was Aurora, NE. Aurora is West of Lincoln about 70 miles away. We hopped on I-80 and arrived in in Aurora a little over an hour after leaving central Lincoln.
Aurora has a population of about 4500 but the town feels larger than that. We went to the Edgerton Explorit Center, splash pad at Cole Park and walked around their quaint downtown. If we'd had more time (and energy) we would have gone to their large city pool.
Our first stop was the Edgerton Explorit Center, a science center. It has 35 interactive exhibits and is good for all ages. There are exhibits for the youngest ones: my two year old loved the Glow Wall, the magnetic run area and the train station. My five year old couldn’t make enough giant bubbles and my eight year old was determined to master “the Claw.” Both older kids loved the flight simulator and the Bubble Tubes were a hit with all of us. Admission for the EEC is $8.25 for ages 2-60, over 60 is $70 and under 2 is free. If you belong to Morrill Hall or the Omaha Children’s Museum your visit is free, as they both belong to the ASTC. We spent three hours at the EEC and could have been there longer but we still had more fun planned for the day!
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After picking up lunch, we drove across town to Cole Park. Cole Park is located on the south side of Highway 34, between 7th and 8th Streets, just two blocks west of Streeter Park. It is a great park with lots of green space, three playgrounds, picnic shelters, walking paths, bathrooms and a splash pad. As a parent, I appreciated two things about the splash pad: there are picnic tables and chairs surrounding it and they have sunshades. In the middle of summer when it is scorching hot sunshades are a necessity. The park was a big hit with everyone and we stayed for two hours bouncing from playground to splash pad to playground.
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Once we left Cole Park we drove by the Aurora Aquatic Facility on our way to the downtown. It is very similar in size and scope to Star City Shores: beach entry, two slides and the toddler area with the splashpad. They also have a deep end with two diving boards and a lily pad obstacle course area. It is $3 for children and $4 for adults, only cash and checks accepted. It looked well maintained and not too crowded on the very hot day that we checked it out.
We finished our day in Aurora in their quaint downtown. It has a Gilmore Girls feel to it with a large grassy square, surrounded on all four sides by locally owned shops. The kids and I had fun walking and window shopping. We had a really good family day on our Field Trip Friday to Aurora and we are all looking forward to going back.
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