Museums Are For Visiting!

When Himself and I travel, visiting local museums and historic sites is very much a part of it.

My parents also are big into visiting museums.  I learned to love visiting historic sites because of them.  Here they are at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. 

We've visited this local history museum in Auburn, WA several times.  I would sometimes go meet Himself when his ship docked and we would explore the eastern WA area.

This is inside a real missile silo.  The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in Philip, SD is part of the National Park system.  You get to go down into the bunker and see what was a scary part of our history.

While we were there, our truck was parked in the pasture land surrounding the entrance.  There were horses in that pasture and one of them decided Little Red must be a giant apple!  We came out to deep gouges in our hood!  The Park Superintendent offered to pay for the repair, so it came out fine.  But if you visit and the horses are there... park out on the road and walk in!

Ellis Island is another National Historic Site.  WELL worth the visit if you are in New York City.

This is a list of Americans who were prisoners of war in Manzanar.  Manzanar was a Japanese "relocation center" in Independence, CA.  (How's that for irony?)  Many people do not realize that the US government rounded up Japanese citizens along the west coast and put them in POW camps here in the US.  These families lost everything... their businesses, their homes, their possessions.  

Yet many young men signed up to serve their country in all military branches.

The day we visited Manazar it had only be open a couple days.  As I walked in, an elderly Japanese couple walked out... he had tears in his eyes and she was sobbing.

Had they or their family been a part of this displacement?

This display is in a former orphanage in the mid west.  It has family significance for us.

A display in Cherokee, NC.

At the musk ox ranch near Palmer, AK there was a small museum that told about the musk ox.

We've been to many Civil War battle fields... Shiloh, Vicksburg, Stone's River, Ft. Donelson, Chickamaugua, and others.

Memphis, TN... a father shows his sons were Martin Luther King was shot.  Inside is the Civil Rights Museum.  The displays are excellent.

Tillicum Village on Blake Island, WA.  A boat cruise out to the island brings you to the attraction that shares the culture of the Pacific Northwest Native Americans through displays, demonstrations, dance, song, and food.

This is one of the displays in a museum in Anchorage, AK.

Museums outside of the USA are a wonderful insight into cultures so different from our own.

Here we are at the fortress in Cartagena, Columbia.  It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Our guide was a local taxi man we hired to show us around.  He was fantastic!

Air Museum in Ottawa, Canada.  This plane is a Sopwith Camel.  Remember all the Snoopy comics where Snoopy was fighting the Red Baron?  He imaged himself in a Sopwith Camel.

A history museum in Granada, Nicaragua. 

"Bomas (Homes) of Kenya"  A cool cultural museum that displays the various tribal homes throughout Kenya.

Also in Kenya, this is the museum that was built on the old US Embassy that was bombed in 1998.  This rather gruesome display is of glass that was removed from victims.  (That is something else that is unique to a country... what they decide to display in a museum!)

A sea turtle sanctuary and breeding facility in Mexico.

An old castle NW of Budapest, Hungary.

If you don't stop in at local museums, I can not urge you enough to start doing so.  Small or grand, you will gain insights you've never had.