Category: Museums

Whydah Pirate Museum – Yarmouth Massachusetts

I know I haven’t been giving my beloved blog much attention lately but it’s only because my chronic fatigue has been working me over like a steam roller this summer so I haven’t been able to make it out of the house very often. So too has my usual travel companion who is currently being pushed to the brink by his capitalist overlords. As such we both desperately needed a more unusual outing, an extra little escape from the bleakness of reality. I pitched the Wydah Pirate Museum because you can’t beat pirates!

The Wydah Pirate Museum is an entire museum based on one very lucky discovery of a sunken pirate ship off the coast of Cape Cod. I’ve always wanted to see an old wooden shipwreck but am also phobic of the ocean so barring that this seemed a nice compromise.

We ended up during peak traffic hours on a gorgeous summer day so by the time we got there I was in no mood to be fighting with the GPS who didn’t feel it was nessassary to tell me which side of the road I was supposed to find this establishment. It is set back from the road with an underwhelming forefront so I drove right past it and ended up turning into a big seemingly abandoned parking lot which turned out to be almost directly across the road. And then I had to dodge two lanes of unrelenting traffic to get across said road which nearly ended in catastrophe when I saw a break in the traffic and slammed the gas to the floor only to have my wussy little Prius bottom out and only kick in a full second or two later. No one died, not even the Prius. Thank God.

As I drove in I was one of several cars there. Outside there was a big banner above the door to what looked like a big metal warehouse. This was almost as sketchy looking as all those salt water fish stores.

Fortunately the inside was completely different. Two teenagers joyfully tended the entrance desk and told us this was a no photo establishment and self guided tours started in an adjoining room where a short video played on a loop. Under the screen was a big gold bell in a tank which was apparently the first thing they found on this wreck.

Travellings into the museum itself we found LOTS of plaques and information, the usual scattering of creepy wax dummies, and a few cases of random things found. We learned this particular ship had a 40% black crew as well as numerous indigenous members and a random twelve year old runaway whose boot and shinbone were found and were currently on display. This was all news to me. I knew black pirates were a thing but I had no idea there were so many and why would an indigenous person want to be a pirate?? I had no answers on that one although the picture was much clearer for the black crew members who through escape and mutiny had chosen the pirate life over slavery. There was also a small display honoring the women pirates who dressed as men to take on this life which to me sounds like some transmen found belonging in a diverse democracy at sea. I’m telling you pirates sound better at governing than our own land based government.

I also got to see some twisted and broken pirate pistols and learned why pirate guns always seemed so cartoonishly large – its because they’re not hand guns, they’re literally sawed off shotguns. Remind me not to get on the bad side of a pirate.

There was even a little station where you could touch some of the coins dredged up during this escavation. They were well polished and worn by being pawed at by thousands of fingers and yet it was still pretty cool to touch someone’s spare change from hundreds of years ago. Also on display were real gold deblooms and pieces of six. They looked so much more primitive than I’d imagined.

But the most unique display was a whole room of various fish tanks filled with large chunks of the wreck that had been encased in mineral deposits and needed to be slowly melted away with the magic of water erosion. There were X-rays revealing what was in these strange rocks. I had always thought corals may take over these sunken vessels, it never occurred to me they’d be slowly enveloped by rock over time, like fossils! Of pirate guns.

Finally there was a slew of displays on what ultimately happened to the pirates who were caught. Spoliers: nothing good. Sort of brought my mood down a bit to be honest. I was rooting for these probably ADHD-addled sea rogues.

We took a moment to play at the knot tying station before scanning the gift shop for morbid loot. There were indeed books a plenty but I left them on this day feeling the $18 entrance fee was already quite enough to spend.

Off we went. I took a selfie outside with one of the wooden pirates so I’d have something to post here, having obeyed the rules of the inside museum.

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Yale University [FREE] Art Gallery – New Haven Connecticut

I know life is getting...grim for a whole lot of people right now but that only confirms that free entertainment and beauty are more needed now than ever and the Yale Art Gallery is free with so much to offer!

We expected a nice museum, though not enormous, maybe with a famous name or two tossed in we can recognize but no, this place was huge. Four whole floors just chuck full of fine art with so many famous names. A real smorgasbord of human creativity that touched on so many cultures and time periods around the world.

Of course I was already in a good mood because I managed to parallel park almost directly in front of the door in one try, during traffic, without attracting an audience of spectateurs. And then I had enough quarters to stuff that goddamn parking meter until it timed out. It’s the little things in life we must celebrate.

ANYWAY. The first exhibit we walked by on the main floor was the African section. I admit, I do not know much about African art or culture, which I realize I could be better at. These pieces were mostly tribal but from all over the continent. A lot of wild animals, masks, colorful figurines. Granted we were the only ones there and the guard followed us around like he thought we were going to stage a heist. Little intense. But I suppose… we’re both white and our ancestors were likely dicks sooo… I get it. But that’s not to say some white people aren’t capable of being respectful.

To be fair since we were there during an intense lull the first two floors had guards who continued to follow us. It was… uncomfortable. At one point I found a silver serving tray made by Paul Revere and went to point out the plaque that this information was written on when a guard barked at me not to touch the exhibits (in this case literal furniture hiding the damn plaque.) My inner 8-year-old knee-jerk responded by yelling, “I DIDN’T TOUCH ANYTHING!” And I honest to god didn’t. Not that my dirty paws could turn furniture (much we’d already seen at antique stores) into dust but you know, respect and all. The last concerning encounter we had was with a very large black guard literally hiding in the shadows of a nook waited for us to pass before saying in a booming voice, “How are you today?” But it wasn’t his stature that made me weary, nor the fact he was hiding in the shadows, it was the pained wheezing that came after his salutations that made me want to ask if he was OK. His facial expression did not seem to be the sort who’d want to be checked in on so I uncomfortably scuttled away, wondering if I was being trolled for being just another timid looking white chick. (I’m totally fine with a little teasing if this was the case.)

Luckily people started to fill the museum and we stopped getting tailed right around the time I squealed with excitement to see not one, not two, but three Van Goghs, none of which I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen almost his entire catalogue save for those in personal collections and Starry Night which is always on tour. That one’s on my bucket list but this one… was a lovely surprise!

We also got to see some Georgia O’Keefe landscapes, some decidedly not ballerina Degas, a couple Jackson Pollocks which looked exactly like the projectile baby vomit and/or splooge I thought it’d look like, quite a few Picassos that seemed like a decent into madness, er, I mean Cubanism, and some others that sounded vaguelly familiar.

These notables were smattered about in different places but we got to see a lot. Roman pottery and mosaics, a likely haunted ancient Meso-American doll, another Meso-American figurine that looked bizarrely like the trash Muppet in The Labyrinth, a gorgeous intensely ornate Buddha that was courting a young photographer who was taking photos of EVERY angle, a delightful depiction of Kali, another Buddha that was thin and serene, some unreasonably jacked baby Jesuses, some Cherubs that probably came from the depths of Hell, some fun abstract sculptures, an exquisite painting of a baby declaring her mom’s titty as her territory, some photography that gave me some ideas about my own, a bunch of “you know what a baby/horse/cat/dog look like, right?” Kinda paintings. A cursed jester, a terrifying baby tinman, some other super questionable scenes on canvas. Oh! And some really impressive shadow puppets! Which were colored on their back sides??

We were having so much fun by this time we had to go back out to feed the meter again. All and all we were there for almost three hours. We saw everything and even swung by the gift shop to buy a magnet and some post cards.

This place was so worth the drive and the fact it was free was astounding. And it was right next to the British Art Museum if you really want to be a glutton for free art. We were pretty exhausted though so we saved this for another day. Perhaps after I remember more than just Banksy as British artists…

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The Paper House, Rockport Massachusetts

This one had been on my list for a long time because it was so odd. And the entrance fee was only $3 a head. Win.

I didn’t actually know where Rockport was. On the other side of Boston of course… so we did that whole fun trip right through the city and all the traffic but luckily it wasn’t that bad on this spring day. When we got to the Paper House it was in a residential neighborhood that was littered with signs reading no parking on this side of the street.

The sign was outside a regular house and up a small city driveway. Was I supposed to go in the driveway??? Could I park on the street?? The driveway had two parking spots, one had what I asumed was the home owner’s car in it. I parked in the other one and we walked awkwardly up the driveway wondering what was going to happen from here. Would we have to ring someone’s doorbell or ring a number? We walked up to the building on the property that read Paper House and looked in the windows. Yep, it was the paper house. It took us a minute to find a sign stating the door was unlocked and we could go in. There was an honor box outside to leave our entry fees.

This place was really small but fun. We were clearly the only ones there. In the structure the walls were decorated with folded paper in the style of “tramp art,” which was common in the 1920’s when these pieces were made. There were chairs, a table, a piano, and a grandfather clock, all decorated with rolls of paper. The information given was that these were made as an experiment to see how long print paper (in this case newspapers) could hold up if varnished and used to make things. There was no explanation as to WHY this experiment was going on, only that it was the homeowner’s grandfather who started in with this quirky hobby in the 1920’s. Some postcards sat out for souvenirs if you wanted to pay an extra 35 cents.

There was also a few pamphlets on other cool places to go in the area including a pottery shed just a few houses down. We’d continue our explorations there. This was a quirky little side quest and if you’re int he area I deffinately think you should give it a little lookey-loo. Otherwise, on it’s own, this probably wasn’t enough for me to say it’s worth any sort of drive, especially through Boston traffic! However, there’s lots of other stuff to do in the area that may make it worth it.

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Natural History Museum, Providence Rhode Island

And I’m back with another great CHEAP museum! Only $2 for admission! Unless you wanted to splurge and buy a planetarium ticket of course. We would have but it’s only open certain days and times which didn’t happen to be when we showed up.

Today’s destination had been chosen not just because it was free but because it was the home of a very unfortunate lioness and her cubs which… I’m honestly not certain they weren’t horrifically deformed prairie dogs. Such is the guesswork that goes into bad taxidermy.

But before we even got to the museum we first had to find it near the Roger William’s Zoo which… consider this the afterlife for random zoo animals and wildlife. The parking lot wasn’t very big and only had one tiny entrance that if you missed it you’d literally have to loop around the entire goddamn block to get back to it. Ask me how I figured that out!

It was surprisingly bustling. We were met by a clerk who told us if we wanted there were several treasure hunts we could enjoy, which were usually for kids but came in three levels of challenge. We’re big kids at heart so we each took one sheet with our questions, a clip board, and a tiny pencil. I haven’t written in pencil in decades. And between the fact it was a pencil and barely big enough to hold my hand writing came off as quite serial killer-esque. No matter I had the hardest treasure hunt and I was going to complete it!

The treasure hunt paper told us which room worth of displays each question’s answer could be found it so it was mostly easy peasy pudding and pie.

First off we had the dinosaurs because… well they deserve to always be the first thing you see as they’re awesome. There was the obligatory T-rex skull (complete with janky teeth!) Some dinosaur egg shells and for reasons I’ll never understand a marble statue of a beautiful woman and her baby.

The wildlife room was next and filled to the brim with taxidermy coming from all skill levels! The perfect ones were lovely but I was most endeared to the ones who looked like they were melting and malformed including one morbidly obese squirrel I’m positive got that way eating cosmic brownies. He just had that look. This room was just local wildlife but other parts of the museum had everything from a polar bear, to a koala that looked like a crumpled bit of fuzzy newspaper, to the aforementioned lioness who was the coup d’etat of bad taxidermy, Jesus Christ was that something.

But my favorite bit of taxidermy was the kakapo, otherwise known as the world’s chonkiest parrot. So fat it can’t even fly. I laughed and then sadly sighed because this parrot was the same kind that was featured on that Stephan Fry nature documentary that went from a sweet segment about a nearly extinct parrot to some poor bastard getting savagely humped for 15 minutes while Fry and crew just laughed. It’s here if you need a chuckle today. My sigh was because I’d recently had an out with the friend who would have known why this particular specimen was so funny.

But anyway, parrots with no grasp of consent aside, this museum also had a section for all things outer space, a room of curious bark textiles, more taxidermy, and a geology room with a map of Rhode Island and what it’d look like if all the ice caps melted. RIP Providence, Newport, and most of the rest of the state. May you sleep sound with the fishies. Amen.

This was a happy fun little museum if you happen to be in the area or are coming back from the zoo and are wondering what those animals look like stuffed.

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Mead Art Museum – Amherst Massachusetts

After enjoying the Beneski’s Natural History Museum it was only a short walk across campus to the Mead Art Museum which was also free.

I noticed the tower out front before we got there and realized it was part of the art museum and I enjoyed taking photos of different angles.

Inside the art museum there was one woman at the check-in and a few other visitors wandering around. The art museum was pretty small and had a very disjointed collection that seemed to be a completely random sampling of different unrelated topics from ancient Etruscan engravings, to recreations of destroyed funeral art, to a room decorated more like a medieval castle than a college, to a visiting black art exhibit, to a painting of a woman being harassed by a cherub weilding a knitting needle. The latter was my favorite because of the expression on the woman’s face that seemed to say, “It’s back again isn’t it?! I can feel it’s sticky hands over my shoulder!”

My other favorite part was the visiting black art exhibit which unlike the rest had a unifying theme making it seem more approachable and less neurotic and all over the place. We had seen everything in maybe 20 minutes. And that included a lot of dawdling.

I’ve certainly been to more impressive art museums but it was free and near the Natural History Museum so why not visit anyway?

From here we attempted to go to the Emily Dickinson Museum also on campus but that museum charges entry and apparently has the sketchy hours of a salt water fish store. As such we found out it was closed when we drove up.

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Beneski Natural History Museum – Amherst Massachussetts

You know with the economy crashing as badly as it has been I have a feeling more of y’all will be joining me in finding the best FREE entertainment New England has to offer! On this particular day it was the Beneski Natural History Museum attached to the university in Amherst Massachusetts.

This is one of the things I love about New England is their colleges and universities are usually quite proud to share their discoveries and collections with people, even people who do not attend said institutions, which is great because even though I was once academically inclined I now do not have a cent to give towards such lofty endeavors but that doesn’t mean my love for the sciences has waned.

The Natural History Museum is attached to an active science building. There are classes going on in the back but there’s pretty rocks in the hallway just outside said classrooms to enjoy if you’re quiet. I was hoping to eavesdrop on a paleontology lecture as I was surrounded by the aforementioned pretty rocks but instead my eyes glassed over at the sound of someone trying to make unsolvable math problems exciting in two different classrooms. Math. It’s never liked me and I never liked it. But the rocks were cool… there was even a display on rocks and minerals found here in New England and I had NO IDEA were here but now I’ll be looking! And the variety… my god, I’d never heard of most of these little earth treasures.

However I didnt swing by today to tell you about hallways, the main part of the museum was probaly more notable! It had more fossils than anything. Most of the big displays were brought back during one exhibition the college hosted in the 1920’s when all you needed was a $100 car, a pick ax, and a vague destination out west somewhere. The colorful details if this story were everywhere to be read and enjoyed.

But there were also drawers, so many drawers! Each just asking to be opened with all sorts of fun stuff… everything from trilobites to turtle fossils. My favorite displays included an Irish elk, two beautiful archapteryx complete with fossilized feathers, and a sea scorpion which is the state fossil of New York. Also the basement which had dinosaur tracks and dinosaur skin imprints lining all the walls.

And since I seem to be writing this entry backwards I will say the exhibits in the entry were very well displayed and even included a cute little dinosaur I’d never heard of and the school’s mascot: the mighty mastodon. A very excitable student greeted us and told us to ask any questions we had. I didn’t ask anything but I did learn the US used to have tiny camels running around and there’s a rock called wulfinite that’s is a gorgeous orange…

I guess that’s where I’ll leave you until tomorrow when I’ll tell you where we walked from here.

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Old Jail Lane Hiking Trail – Barnstable MA

Sometimes when you have been out adventuring for as long as I have the inspiration starts to run a little dry and then you just have to ask the universe what it thinks you should do. In this particular case it thinks I should go to the oldest wooden jailhouse in the United States which was said to be open. Sounded good to me so off we went! And there it was in all it’s adorable glory sitting next to an old blacksmith shop and a Naval Museum. But woe! Although the brochure on the door said it was open it was not. So we took a walk down the trail directly behind it – two days in a row – because as you guessed it, it wasn’t open the day after either.

And you know what? The trail was a destination in and of itself! Cute and cozy and near civilization and yet covered in vines and greenery that made it seem like an import of some far away jungle. Before very long we crossed a railroad track which provided a fun opportunity for photos. Beyond that there seemed to be a number of unmarked trails all jutting off of each other. I am honestly not sure where we ended up or why. But when I started overheating we headed our way back, having had our walk in for the day.

It was kind of cute. I would definitely tell someone who lives in the area to go check it out. Maybe you’ll get lucky and the old jailhouse will be open! If only… as for the trail, it was nice, worth travelling very far? maybe not. Although the surrounding area was super interesting and unique so maybe….

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Prescott Farm Trail – Middletown RI

It’d been a hell of a few weeks for me and unfortunately, I think my chaos gremlin followed me to Rhode Island on this particular week because my usual travel companion wasn’t having an easy go of it either. We both needed desperately to get out of the house but lacked the energy to actually do so. A compromise was made – to stay in town and go back to a destination we’d already been to before – a destination I remember taking photos of but for some reason cannot find said photos or blog entry?? Shame because I took very few photos this time around thinking I already had plenty!

Prescott Farm is the site of a historic farmstead and gristmill. It has one of very few surviving windmills in here in the US built in the early 1800s and there are several other historic buildings also on the property you can poke at. And “gardens,” lots of “gardens” which appear to be wildly out of control fenced in weeds… which I guess are mostly native and probably were used at some point by locals but I definitely saw some things in there that clearly blew in from somewhere else. A vegetable garden this was not. Although I did find a patch of choke cherry trees along the perimeter. SOMEDAY. Someday I’ll have land and chokecherry trees of my own with which to make jam with.

The location is known for its little duck pond where a gaggle of them wait to be fed. We however were here to check out the hiking trails first so off we went past the old homestead, the historic markers, and the windmill, into the woods! The woods were a well needed respite from the heat. Despite the fact that today was hotter and muggier than a teenage Shrek’s jock strap (sorry) the woods were cool and refreshing! And pretty! We found a bunch of little fairy houses that someone had left at random trees and then I spotted a really fat deer – the first one I’ve seen on island in all my visits here! And just beyond the deer we came across a weird bird sitting at the edge of the water just chilling, giving no mind to us whatsoever. My companion thought it was a hawk because of its coloration and short stubby shape, I thought it was a blue heron because of its beak. Drawing closer to it I realized it wasn’t nearly big enough to be a heron and its beak definitely wasn’t that of a hawk. We were both bewildered by the animal who still didn’t care we were staring at it like leering predators. We’d only later learn its identity by posting photos on FaceBook – it was a night heron. I have never heard of such a thing and am growing increasingly concerned I might be wandering ever closer to becoming a birder, the horror. This goes doubly for my companion who thought he heard an owl. This resulted in us both stalking a mourning dove to the chimney of the farmhouse. To be fair the “mourning” sound of mourning doves does sound a bit owl-like.

The trails were very short and sweet and at times a little messy but it was cute and I was happy to have seen some wildlife. We were however about to approach the famous duckpond. Ooooooph, it was very choked in out in weeds, I don’t think they were native either. However, the ducks still persisted, as did frogs, baby turtles, pond skimmers, diving beetles, and a fantastic orgy of every kind of dragon fly you could think of just finding their love match. It was kind of funny. The ducks showed interest in us only as long as it took to figure out our sorry asses didn’t have any food for them and then they wandered off crankily quaking at each other.

This was a nice little diversion – just the amount of green and activity I needed to get back onto a path of a well-regulated nervous system. So, if you’re in town maybe check it out. It’s rather cute, child friendly, and has a little history. Also, the windmill is nice to take photos of.

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Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts – Springfield Massachusetts

There were two art museums within the pavilion but we’d gotten to the museums rather late and basically had to run through what we could. As such we had to only chose one of the two art museums. We chose the one with a Georgia O’Keefe and a Monet, neither of which my travel companion had seen before.

This was such a sweet little art museum. Not too big. Not too stuck on itself. Just the right atmosphere. There were some neat abstract sculptures and paintings I felt like I could have made…. if only I could find some rich people to ̶c̶o̶n̶, er, sell to.. *whistles innocently*

Most of the other pieces were impressive in their own ways. There were lots of European portraits which seemed to be confused as to how children should be composed… with boards for necks? Sure, why not. And one with a wealthy gent leaned back in in a pose I can only describe as “Tinder the 1700’s Version.” There were some poignant African American and black pieces. But with 15 minutes left on the clock until closing we had found neither Georgia O’Keefe (who I struggled to categorize) or Monet. Luckily the impressionists were a few rooms over and there was the usual line-up of Degas and Monet. Degas was predictable. Ballerinas. Monet though…. who knew he painted pink hay bales?! Were they supposed to be pink or did they just age weird?? I have no answers.

We had to ask the desk clerk for O’Keefe. We’d passed by hers it was so unimpressive and entirely not flowered. It was a simple, very flat, depiction of a gray mountain landscape. Underwhelming for sure. I was kind of annoyed by this… both O’Keefe and Monet were… atypical. But my companion was happy, so I was happy for him. Besides, I’d seen so much nightmare fuel to keep me bust it was still worth it. We made a note to maybe come back some day and see the other art museum as well as the Springfield Historical Society’s Museum.

This was a great art museum if you’re just starting out going to art museums. It wasn’t too big or overwhelming but still managed to be interesting. At no point was I stopped in my tracks and crying, which is always a plus with me in art museums! It was a nice entry point for starting to learn about the different art movements.

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Springfield Science Museum – Springfield Massachusetts

Since we were already at the Dr Suess Museum, we decided it was worth using our ticket to see the Science Museum on premise as well. It was definitely geared for children. And children at heart. I wanted to see the dinosaurs because… dinosaurs. They had a life-size T-rex sculpture, a stegosaurus, and a few modest displays around them. It was… underwhelming but luckily other things in the museum sufficed to keep me entertained!

Most of them were in the basement where no one else seemed to be… But here in this VERY warm abode there were a bunch of cute critters! Native fish, some small reptiles, some non-native marine fish, and more turtles than I could have hoped for (one who was INTENSELY staring at me, not sure why.) My companion found entertainment in front of the snake enclosure because someone had just lobbed two very dead mice in there and the snake was contentedly nomming down on them.

Upstairs there was a TON of taxidermy – both African game and normal New England based critters. Most of the African creatures were superbly done – except for those vaguely wonky lions and the chimpanzee with a… human? ish…. face…. I don’t know what demons were inhabiting that poor chimp but something! Meanwhile the local critters were a real tossup between ‘great job’ and ‘WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE?!’ The winner of the latter category went to muskrat with a wildly contorted face.

There also was a modest Native American exhibit as well as an African peoples exhibit and some replicas of various human ancestor skulls which I found interesting. They also had a planetarium which we did not go to see a show at but we did loiter around their space exhibits for a bit. Pet a meteor, played with a robotic arm, looked curiously at a space suit, and weighed myself on the “How Fat are you on Other Planets?” scale. That one told me I lost a pound so I liked it.

ANYWAY… This was a lovely destination if you have kids, especially under 10 or so. Or if you are a big kid like me! It was a nice bonus to the Dr Suess Museum!

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