Our RV Adventures

Since we had a busy day planned, Jan and I headed out about 10am for our visit to the da Vinci exhibit. But our first stop was another visit to Over Easy, a really good local breakfast place.

Jan had her usual eggs, bacon, and toast, but with their delicious brioche toast. But I switched off to a bacon, sausage, cheese, and jalapeno omelet, also with the brioche toast. But I tried something a little different – sweet potato tater tots. And they’re really good.

After breakfast I went to the restroom to wash my hands, and then stood there waving my hands at a box on the wall, silently cursing that it wouldn’t give me a paper towel to dry my hands.

It took me longer than I would like to admit before I realized that I was supposed to just stick my hand up and pulled a towel out of the dispenser.

A manual towel dispenser? What are they thinking? This is the 21st century.

Leaving Over Easy, it was about 30 minutes to the Arizona Science Center where the Da Vinci – The Genius was on view.

Parking in the garage across the street, we encountered these unused Electric Vehicle Charging Stations conveniently close to the elevators.

I thought about just parking here – conveniently close to the elevators – and just sticking the charging cable under the hood.

I mean, surely someone makes an electric truck, don’t’ they?

Getting across the street we first encountered about a million screaming kids. Apparently we picked Kid’s Science Day to see the Da Vinci exhibit. But luckily for us they were there for the many hands-on science exhibits in other parts of the the center.

Entering the exhibit area, we quickly realized that this da Vinci exhibit was located in the same area of the center where we saw the Body Worlds exhibit in 2007.

What I really found interesting were that they had recreated many of the drawings and inventions that sprung from da Vinci’s imagination.

This first one is a diving suit, designed to allow soldiers to attack enemy ships in the harbor.

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These are several of da Vinci’s war weapons, a steam-powered cannon, and small scale model of the first visualization of today’s military tanks.

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Here’s his idea for a glider.

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This one is a ornithopter, a flying machine that flies by flapping the wings.

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And here’s da Vinci’s other take on a vertical ornithopter.

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Here’s da Vinci’s Air Screw, his idea of a helicopter.

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Discovered in the 1970’s, the drawing of a prototype bicycle was first attributed to da Vinci, but it is now thought to be a hoax, though it is not known who the perpetrator was.

The last part of the exhibit was about what Leonardo da Vinci is probably best known for.

The Mona Lisa.

Here’s what the Mona Lisa looks like today.

In October 2004, French engineer Pascal Cotte, founder of Lumiere Technology, was allowed to scan the painting with a 240-megapixel Multi-spectral Imaging Camera he invented, which uses 13 wavelengths from ultraviolet light to infrared. The resulting images peel away centuries of varnish and other alterations, shedding light on how the artist brought the painted figure to life and how she appeared to da Vinci and his contemporaries.

The photo below shows the many different layers of the Mona Lisa’s eyes taken with the Multi-Spectral Camera. And using it they finally found her missing eyebrows and eyelashes.

Art historians over the years have argued about why the Mona Lisa doesn’t have either. Women are known to pluck their eyebrows, but eyelashes?

As it turns out, they were there to start with, but due to a different paint and painting technique, they have faded over the years.

But her eyebrows and eyelashes aren’t the only things that faded. Take a look at what the Multi-Spectral camera shows the Mona Lisa looked like when it was painted.

Quite a difference. And now she’s got eyebrows and eyelashes.

We spent about two hours going through the exhibit and really enjoyed it. The Da Vinci exhibit is here in Phoenix until June 9th, so if you get the chance, check it out before it moves on. It’s worth it.

We got back home about 2pm, and then about 5pm we picked up Nick and Terry and drove over to Los Gringos Locos to meet up with Ed and Alice Allard, and their son Mike.

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On another note, if you thought Assault Weapons are bad,

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Now we’ve got Assault Pressure Cookers to worry about.

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Thought for the Day:

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. – Thomas Jefferson

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