The Greensboro Science Center isn’t exactly a hidden gem, since plenty of people know about it, but it’s still a local treasure. Any time we have children staying with us, it’s one of the must-visit places. And since they keep adding on and improving it, there are always new things to explore.

We arrived there early, just as they were opening at nine a.m., since the day promised to be warm and went directly to the outdoor zoo section first. Hitting that part early meant not only cooler temperatures but almost no crowds. After saying hello to the tortoises, the meerkats, and some of the birds, the children headed for what has proved to be the most popular feature with all of my grandkids – the treehouse play area.

The collection of four or five treehouses and a couple of platforms are connected by a network of rope bridges, net platforms, rough ladders, climbing areas, and slides. Inside the treehouse feature (I’m told) small rooms, mazes, and even a climbing wall. The children played on this for about an hour before we moved on to viewing the rest of the zoo.

The young pygmy hippopotamus was visible in their indoor retreat but positioned in a way that I couldn’t get a picture. We also saw the Cassowary, which looks like a giant dinosaur turkey, several varieties of cats, (some with kittens), flamingoes, maned wolves, and the lemurs. Sadly the tiger was lying low somewhere out of sight, so we missed him. The large dinosaur statues provided some interesting photo ops, however.

When we stopped in the viewing box for the lemurs, the children were having an apple snack. The lemurs either recognized by sight or more likely smelled the apples, because both of them quickly approached the viewing window and stared at us from just the other side of the glass for some time. One of them spent some time searching for an opening to get out of their enclosure and into the viewing nook. Fortunately, they failed to find any passage.

By that time it was getting quite warm and more crowded, so we moved inside and headed for the aquarium.

There we all got to pet the Rays and a small, lumpy creature they told us was a shark, though it didn’t look much like one. I thought it resembled a particularly ugly catfish, without the spiny whiskers. The Rays have a very odd surface texture. Not quite slimy and not quite spongy, but somewhere in between.

The aquarium has an extensive and varied display of creatures. I adore the little seahorses and am fascinated by the variety of corals, anemones, and jellyfish, but the real treat this time was the Giant Pacific Octopus. As many times as I’ve been to the Science Center aquarium, I’ve never gotten a good look at the octopus. He’s always folded up into some nook or cranny of the rock background. Not this time. He was out and displaying his gorgeous self to the world, with his tentacles spread across the glass and held there by the suckers, his purple head hanging in the water, eyeing the masses ogling him. Count us among the fascinated oglers.

We also spent time in a large room full of mazes and a variety of other brain-teasing puzzles that kept us occupied for quite a while. Finally we ate the lunch we’d brought, topped off by ice cream from The Meerkat Café. A visit to the butterfly garden finished off the day in a lovely manner.