Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Karl Nicolai and his son Ivan Nicolai, 3, play on a model of the James River at Amazement Square.

A climbing gym goes up four floors at Amazement Square in Lynchburg, giving visitors access to the exhibits in the museum.

Amazement Square in Lynchburg also owns a skate park that includes an 8-foot-deep bowl.

Amazement Square is the kind of place that makes adults wish they were kids again.

It's not unusual for children to emerge from the Amazement Tower -- a series of slides, tunnels and cargo nets that enables its users to move up and down the four-floor Lynchburg museum without ever touching a stair or elevator -- only to be quickly followed by a beaming parent. And that smile isn't from living vicariously.

But make no mistake: The Rightmire Children's Museum at Amazement Square is in fact aimed squarely at children. That's what drew Zach and Amanda Harold and their three children there from Botetourt County on a recent Sunday.

"My wife told me about it, and she's been bugging me to come for a year," Zach Harold said as he stood with Bridger, his youngest child, near Voltageville, a series of circuits and switches that connect to lights and motors.

The display, like everything else in the museum, is designed to be engaging and interactive.

"It's definitely not your traditional museum, where you just stop and look at things," said museum spokeswoman Melissa Zadell. "Everything has an interactive component. Even things that aren't hands-on, per se, have a hands-on component right next to it."

Take the museum's Egypt gallery. Probably the most popular piece is a life-size mummy that peeks out from behind a King Tut-like golden mask. That display is behind glass, but it's next to half a dozen others that allow participation: Outfits that let children dress as a pharaoh or farmer; a pyramid made of vinyl blocks that can be destroyed and rebuilt; a display of a body, about to be mummified, with wooden replicas of internal organs that are matched to specific jars; and a workstation that encourages children to write their names in hieroglyphics.

Each of those displays also has a written display, which lets parents educate their children on the facts behind the fun.

There are four floors chock-full of a variety of these displays -- everything from architecture to the James River and even physics displays. That might account for why 90,000 people annually visit the museum, which first opened in 2001.

Kenn Barron is something of a connoisseur of children's museums around Virginia.

He and his wife have taken their two children from Staunton to a number of nearby children's museums, including those in Harrisonburg and Charlottesville.

"Every one has its shtick or novelty," Barron said. "This one is the indoor jungle gym and the painting room downstairs."

That latter reference is to the Paint Box, located in the basement of the museum. There, children remove their shoes and are given a smock before they step into a clear glass room with a palette of water-based paints in the center. They're free to paint the walls, as parents watch from the other side of the glass.

One small girl traced her mother's hand as she held it to the glass.

Twice a day, a staff member turns on a mechanical hose that sprays the walls clean so children can then start fresh.

Adjoining the Paint Box are three other popular features. One is a music studio where children can jam out on a guitar, bass or other instruments. Observers can listen on headphones that allow them to single out one instrument or listen to all of them in a "band jam."

Behind that is a "puppet tree" -- essentially a small stage stocked with puppets that allows children to put on shows for an audience, who watch from benches facing the tree.

On the same floor there's also a green screen, much like those used by television broadcasters to report the weather, with several different programs that put participants against different environments on screen. One, for example, lets those in front of the screen "play" a set of virtual drums.

If you want a quieter setting, there's a book nook for reading and an area stocked with materials for crafts.

Barron said the variety and rotating schedule of exhibits translate to a museum worth returning to, even as his children get older.

"These are things the kids can come and play with for a long time," Barron said.

He also cited the museum's "barnyard," aimed at younger children, as an attraction for some parents.

In the barnyard, children can pull plush ears of corn from artificial stalks, pet wooden animals that respond by making noises and even "milk" white-colored water from a cow.

"It's nice when they have a place like that for the little kids, so they don't get stepped on by the big kids," Barron said.

That's an upside for those with young children, but there's also a downside -- no strollers are allowed. The museum's Web site says that's for safety concerns, but it also means that parents with lit'uns should bring baby slings or carriers.

That's what Zach Harold did for his youngest, and while it did wear on him by the end of his family's hour-plus visit, it didn't seem to slow him down one bit as he scrambled through Amazement Tower. His 5-year-old daughter Balor said the tower was her favorite part of the museum.

But Zach seemed just as enthusiastic about the feature, comparing it to Disney World's Epcot.

"I think the adventure of the tunnels was the best thing for me," Zach Harold said. "You get up there and start climbing through and don't know where you're going to come out."

He did say that the museum is "definitely worth the drive" and that he and his family will be returning.