Category Archives: Museums

Creation Evidence Museum, Glen Rose, Texas

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A few years back I found the Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose State Park and I was enchanted at the chance to stand in an actual dinosaur footprint. On the way there I noticed the Creation Evidence Museum, 3102 FM 205, Glen Rose, Texas 76043. Well this Texas trip I went back to check out the museum because I think it is good for me to explore different view points and a fair number of folks must believe in creation because there are two US museums devoted to this topic. This one in Glen Rose is the smaller of the two. The 27 million dollar Creation Museum in Kentucky has a full size replica of Noah’s Ark! In fact this article, based on a Gallop poll, states 46% of the US adult population believes in Creationism (God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so).

General impressions:

  • The 45 minute introductory video by the museum director, Carl Baugh, walked the audience through many of the museum’s exhibits. If I wasn’t such a skeptic (thanks dad) I would have found it very convincing. Wikipedia suggests that there is controversy around Mr. Baugh’s theories.
  • I’m learning that I didn’t really understand the theory of creationism. The video suggested that the earth, animals, dinosaurs, people and all was put into place in seven actual earth days. Charts were presented. The science was explained. Biblical passages were quoted.
  • I really enjoyed many of the exhibits. I like dinosaurs and there were a few to see. I like the Noah’s ark story and there was a really large model of the ark. I like models.
  • The people that worked there were sincerely nice.
  • The museum was well maintained and the bathrooms were clean.
  • Nobody preached at me.
  • Per the museum’s information dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time and the earth is about 6,000 years old.
  • I had trouble getting my head around dinosaurs being on Noah’s ark (let’s just assume that there really was a Noah’s ark). So I read up on it. The logic is that some of the larger dinosaurs were taken as babies, so not so big at the time. And many of the dinosaurs actually were little. And the water dinosaurs didn’t need the ark. You can see the dinosaurs on the ark in the model (go ahead, look)
  • But what happened to the dinosaurs under that scenario?! One article suggested that they tasted like chicken and were a food source. Well ok then.
  • I liked the holiday decorations on the t-rex head.
  • There was a Pulsed Magnetic Field (PMF) unit which looked like a long tube. The sign on it stated in bold, all cap, underlined, red letters “Our magnetic field unit is not turned on at any time during public visits to the museum. You are not under the field’s influence at this moment!” Well, I hadn’t really been worried about it. There was a glass pane missing and I’d think it would have to be a sealed unit to work. I’d kind of like to know the last time it actually was turned on.
  • The full size replica of the Guttenberg was fascinating.
  • I had no idea that Tom Landry was so very involved with Creationism. He was the coach of the Dallas Cowboys when I lived in the Dallas area. There is a larger than life size statue of him at the museum. It is next to a statue of a native American. Mr. Landry was also featured on the video.

So there you have it. I’m glad I went. It certainly didn’t convince me of creationism, but I came away with a better understanding of what it is and why people believe it. There were a bunch of children there and this information is being presented as fact.

The museum costs $6 a person (5 and under are free). Their website is here. Personally I think that no matter what you believe, it is worthwhile to visit. I gained interesting insights.

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Dear Daughter Got Hitched: Stanley Park, Vancouver Aquarium and Totem Poles

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By Wednesday, our small family group expanded to include Dear SIL’s parents and brother and we all went off to the Vancouver Aquarium because dear daughter wanted to touch the stingrays. That is an odd goal that she has … to visit stingray tanks in as many zoos and aquariums as possible. So far she has Vancouver, Tacoma, Chicago, LA and Galveston, TX. The Vancouver Aquarium is justifiably  internationally famous and some of our visit highlights included the jellyfish, the otters and seals (so playful), the educational shows, the frogs and that I got to be there when the penguins were delivered back to their habitat.

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Afterwards we went to see the Totem Poles, which are also in Stanley Park. Interesting facts about totem poles can be found here.

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Natives at the Pacific Bonsai Museum

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Dear daughter and I went to revisit the Himalayan Blue Poppies at the Weyerhaeuser Rhododendron Gardens in Federal Way before they completely faded away for the season. In the United States, these poppies only grow in parts of New England, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, so we are lucky.

While we were they we checked out the adjoining Pacific Bonsai Museum, which we had been through a half dozen times. This time though there was a really great exhibit titled Natives. Per the brochure “each display in Natives is a composition of four artists — the bonsai artists, the kusamono artist (Young Choe), the ceramicist (Victoria Chamberlain) and the visual artist (Iuna Tinta)”. In case you don’t know (I didn’t) a kusamono artist creates potted arrangements of wild grasses and flowers in unique pots or trays. So each display has a bonsai, a companion kusamono (accent), the ceramic art (often using minerals from the depicted region) and a visual piece of art, all of which are centered around a particular place. It is a marvelous exhibit and worth some real time. The exhibit runs from April 8- October 8, 2017 and more information can be found here.

And, of course, there are some photos of the blue poppies and other foliage from the gardens.

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Vicious Weasil at the Museum at Longmire, Mt. Rainier

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Dear Daughter, home for her last Thanksgiving Break, needed to visit Mt. Rainier as part of her geology class. OK, fine, I like Mt. Rainier. I pack up my emergency backpack,  extra blankets, water in case we hit bad weather and dear husband and off we went. Luckily there are many pullouts from the street near the mountain and DD got her photos. Not the full glorious mountain, of course, because it was raining and even snowing, but some close ups of rocks that seemed to make her happy. We got as far as Longmire and had lunch and checked out the small museum (the Longmire Museum at Mt. Rainier). I was so busy staring at the vicious face on this little weasel that I didn’t notice his poor prey until I reexamined the photo!

So here are the photos. Beside the Longmire Museum there are two shots of the Mountain taken on clearer days, a photo of the road going through the National Park, the porch at the lodge and the graffiti rocks approaching the park.

BTW, you need to have chains in your vehicle to enter the park after November 1st. It gets dark at about 3 pm in the winter (its all those trees!). There is no cell service on the mountain (at least the part we were at). Here is a link to Longmire.  And Happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

Teapot Dome in Zillah, WA

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In the early 1920s, during the presidency of Harding, our country was subject to the Teapot Dome Scandal, which revolved around oil reserves that were leased without competitive bid. There were two oil fields involved, the Teapot Dome fields in Wyoming and the Elk Hills field in California. The leases were investigated by the Senate and criminal charges were filed. Fines were paid, jail time served and the phrase Teapot Dome became synonymous with political corruption.

Well, in 1922, in the middle of the scandal, Jack Ainsworth, constructed his Teapot Dome Gas Station as a nod to the scandal. It is considered a roadside attraction and is open for visiting on the weekend for limited hours. Originally it was situated on Highway 410 between Zillah and Granger; however in 1978 it was scheduled to be moved to make way for Highway 82. Five days before it was to be moved, a car plowed into this tiny structure. The building, which is now on the historic register, was reconstructed by hand and moved to its current location at 14691 Yakima Valley Highway.  It has its own parking lot, a public restroom building and is next to a memorial for fallen firefighters.

I got there about five minutes before it closed (I didn’t even think it might be open!) and got the tour (about 2 minutes). The volunteers were delightful. I read that there is a movement to relocate the building once again to downtown Zillah and to have it function as a visitor’s center. I was glad to have a chance to see the quirky building, though the light made it difficult to capture the image.

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US Airforce 675 is in Granbury, but don’t go see it

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There I was at the Granbury Post Office mailing some paperwork to my niece. Looking for something else to do, I stopped at the firefighter’s memorial and from there I could see a plane! OK, that’s cool. I backtracked down the road and through the open gate of the US Veteran’s Museum. Just past the building, which was closed, I found the plane. A gentleman in a riding mower came to check out my intentions and told me that the museum had been closed for about a year. I found out later it had moved to nearby Glen Rose. I let him know that I was harmless and just wanted to snap a couple of photos, which I did while circling the plane on foot. The google map showed the plane complete, however, the wings had been removed and were next to the rest of the plane on the ground and the tail was missing. Since the museum is closed, I won’t suggested anyone else going to visit though a locked gate and/or no trespassing sign would have prevented me for seeing this kind of great plane. The riding mower man made sure I actually left and good for him for watching out for the property.

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Just Be Your Selfie (in blue)

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Just Be Your Selfie in Blue

Stopped by the Tacoma Art Museum today to catch the Edvard Munch and the Sea exhibit before it slipped away on 7/17/16. While that was terrific and I learned a bunch about Munch, what I really loved was the Northwest Art Now Exhibit. There are some excellent, thought provoking pieces in that exhibit, included one of my favorites “Just be your selfie” by Dylan Neuwirth. I was at TAM on a brilliantly sunny day and this outside piece was difficult to see, so I did highlight it in blue in the photo (look at me learning Photoshop!) I need to go back in the evening to capture it glowing. More information on the Seattle based artist can be found here.

Below is the photo without my added blue box, Richard Rhodes’ untitled “stone wave” sculpture and a shot of the gallery (again playing with Photoshop).

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Tacoma Historic Society

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imageThe Tacoma Historic Society at 919 Pacific Ave, Tacoma, WA 98402 has been at this location since March 2014 (two years) and today dear husband and I finally made it for a visit. I was eager to see the Tacoma Candy exhibit (Sweet Success) before it went away on March 26th. While it is not a huge museum like the Washington State History Museum, it is well curated and so very interesting.  I really loved seeing the machine that makes ribbon candy. I thought it was a musical instrument at first! The Mission Statement of the Tacoma Historical Society is as follows “Tacoma Historical Society is dedicated to the preservation, promotion and presentation of the history of the City of Tacoma and its people.” 

While the exact number of Tacoma Candy makers isn’t known, there was about 75 of them. The three remaining ones that I can think of are Brown & Haley, Johnson’s Candy and Emily’s. There is a press release about the exhibit here and the website for the museum and historic society is here.

Fort Steilacoom Museum

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imageFor a year we planned to visit Historic Fort Steilacoom at 9601 Steilacoom Blvd, Lakewood, but they have limited hours (Sundays 1-4 during the summer and the first Sunday of the month from 1-4 from Labor Day to Memorial Day), and we have three different schedules, so it just took that long.

We thought it would be a small museum and perhaps it might be about Western State Hospital, but we were wrong on both accounts. The museum included several buildings and a two hour tour and was completely about the historic fort which had operated on the grounds. The tour guide was so incredibly  knowledgeable and explained the fort’s history using the detailed model and in the other buildings to illustrate to us how the soldiers lived. I found it particularly interesting that the army would send representatives back east to meet new immigrants at the docks. The men would be offered transportation to the west coast and a job with room and board. Some eventually received free land. Such an opportunity. The fort’s history can be found on their website, but it is worthwhile to visit in person and go inside the actual buildings and talk to the terrific volunteers.

Talking about the volunteers, the green tint on the two gentleman is completely the fault of the lens! I was told that the lack of smiles is because people didn’t smile for photos in those days. They thought it made them look imbecilic.

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Welcome

Jellies at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

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imageSqueezing in a little last bite of summer, a bunch of us went to to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium  to visit the jellies and the big cats. It was such a treat because one of the group of our happy group actually volunteers at the zoo and was able to tell us about the animals. I was so busy chatting with my friends, that I forgot to take many photos! Perhaps the dearest of the exhibits was the cloud leopards cubs even though they just slept there in a big pile of darlingness.

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