Something you probably don’t see every day: thirty kids, in a bar, without their parents.

That was our day yesterday at the Sandbar.

Our friends at the Lawrence Public Library are hosting Read Across Lawrence, an annual community reading event, and this year’s selection for kids is “Turtle in Paradise.” The book is about a turtle who heads for Key West, and the hurricane of 1935 is featured in the book.

Read Across Lawrence includes educational events to go along with the book, so, naturally, it made sense to hold an event at the Sandbar. Where else in Lawrence can you find a little bit of Key West, and a lot of hurricanes?

So yesterday, about thirty kids got their first taste of the Sandbar as they moved between three educational stations and learned about the science behind hurricanes from UKanTeach students.

After about 45 minutes of learning, the kids got to experience the famous indoor hurricane, complete with the cheesy video and napkins flying through the air.

This might be the cutest thing ever:

Once it was over, the kids got a souvenir strand of beads to take home with them.

A funny thing that happened: as he got his beads, one kid asked Dave “can I have a mustache?”

Dave and I looked at each other in a bit of shock. “How does he know about mustaches?” we wondered.

But we just got the box of mustaches and started handing those out, too.

Thanks, Lawrence Public Library and parents, for letting us be part of Read Across Lawrence!