Happy Summer Solstice! It’s also World Music Day, Go Surfing Day and the 223rd birthday of the state of New Hampshire. Sorry, I didn’t get you anything but I didn’t think you’d mind, considering I only drove through you once on my way from Massachusetts to Maine. Not sure if...
If you thought the huge collection at the Bunny Museum wasn’t good enough, well, you’re in luck. Near the Missouri/Arkansas border in the teeny tiny town of Gateway (human population 422) the front yard of a random home displays a six-foot-tall fiberglass statue of a “Jack Rabbit”. Originally used as...
I don’t know about you, but a talking transparent anatomical mannequin gives me the heebie jeebies. But maybe some of you feel differently, so let me introduce you to Valeda III, who has been on display at the Kansas Learning Center for Health since 1965. Yes, this “woman” has been...
A few years ago I took a road trip through Iowa, which included a stop in Mason City. I visited the town not because I am a devotee of The Music Man but due to its large number of Prairie School buildings. Yes, this architecture nerd even stayed at the...
This next museum might blow you away, like, literally. Chicago might be called the Windy City, but the seaport city of Trieste actually deserves the title. Although the city is well known for its history and gorgeous architecture, Trieste is also affected by a chilly north-easterly wind called Bora, which...
Ah, Wales. As my English and Scots friends say, “The Welsh…they’re a bit funny.” Even if you don’t agree with that statement like I do, you have to admit this next museum is just that…a bit funny. The South Welsh Borderers Museum is located in Brecon near Knighton in Powys....
Happy Pride y'all! The Schwules Museum in Berlin was the world’s first gay museum. It opened 27 years ago above Schwuz, a gay nightclub, in the Kreuzberg area of the city and is dedicated exclusively to LGBT topics.
Believe it or not, the heads you see weren’t created for comical reasons, they’re called “gapers”, used in front of apothecaries or chemists shops (aka pharmacies) in parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, northern France and western Germany. Back in the day people needed literal translations to understand what the...
If you haven’t noticed already, I’m a bit fascinated with weird body stuff, which many museums are happy to display for sick and twisted people like me. At the Royal College of Surgeons in London, the Hunterian Museum displays an actual rectum cut from the corpse of the Bishop of...
HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY! Groundhog Skeleton, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC
On a lighter note, let’s turn to the Gopher Hole Museum in Alberta, Canada. Yep, a gopher museum. Stuffed gophers dressed up in outfits (hairdresser, RCMP officer and preacher) placed in 47 different scenes. I don’t know if this is educational, but it sure is funny. And it’s world famous...
The Art Institute of Chicago is not only a museum, but it’s also a school. Occasionally visitors will see students painting replicas of some of the masterpieces on display at the museum. Here are some photographs I took a few years ago, which I recently found in my endless photo...
