For a second week in a row, weather affected my travels. I was still able to make the most of the week, but with my time left here getting shorter and shorter I’m hoping not to lose any more days.
I started out this week in Hartford at the Old State House. The state house was the home to different government operations from 1796 through to the early 1900s. It was also the first location of the Amistad trial before moving on to the supreme court. I went on a guided tour of the building, and I learned a lot about the history of Connecticut. Everything from how Connecticut had 2 capitols, to the governor not having an office to women having the right to vote even in the 1800s. There was also a museum area that was built below the original state house in the basement that did a good job showcasing some of the local history. Fewer events with national implications happened in the Connecticut state house than the Massachusetts or Pennsylvania state houses, but it was still neat to get to see and learn a little more about the history of the state I’m currently living in.
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After the State House, I went to the New England Air Museum. The museum is located on the Bradley International Airport grounds and is pretty much 3 airplane hangars of planes. Some of the planes were interesting to see, but overall, it’s not the best museum if you don’t already know what you are looking at. There were tons of artifacts and articles from World War II, but it wasn’t super easy to read or learn about. It was also often difficult to know why the specific planes on display were important historically. In the entrance hall to the hangars there was a neat display on how Bradley Airport got its name and the history of the airport as a military base which was really interesting. I also really enjoyed the last hangar with the B29 exhibit. Not only was it much easier to focus on the plane itself, but the information accompanying it was much easier to focus on than it was in the other hangars. There was information on nose art related to bombers in general as well as how it related to the restoration of the plane on display. There was also information on the history of the museum’s collection and restoration efforts including the 1979 tornado that destroyed many planes and the abandonment and storage of many of those planes outside for a decade or more after. I could see how much of the museum would have been much more interesting for a WWII or flight buff, but for me it was a bunch of planes without much context for why they were important.
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My second day of adventures took me back to Boston. I started the day at the USS Constitution and Museum. It was interesting to visit because the site is still an active Naval yard, and the ship has Navy sailors giving the tours of the ship in addition to their Naval responsibilities. The tour of the ship only covers the top 2 decks, but it was still neat to see. The sails were not on the ship due to weather when I visited, and the top deck was mostly just windy and cold. The second deck is the gun deck that has all of the canons on it. It also had the kitchen area and the captain’s room on the second deck. The ship itself was still capable of sailing, and it was neat to get to see what the inside of the ship would have looked like when it was operational. The museum didn’t have a ton of exhibits. There were some carvings that had been made from wood from the Constitution as well as a few old pieces of the ship that had been restored or replaced over time. There was a fully rigged model of the ship that was neat to see since the sails were off the real ship. Upstairs in the museum there was a section on sailors and what life would have been like for them. Many of the activities were more geared towards kids, but there were some interesting facts throughout the exhibit. I found it really interesting that it’s estimated that roughly 15% of the sailors were black. Overall, the Constitution and the museum were really interesting historically, and it was also really interesting that it is still an active Navy site.
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After the Navy yard, I went to the Museum of Science. I really enjoyed a lot of the exhibits and the museum. Cliff the triceratops was really neat to see, and I really enjoyed the whole dinosaur exhibit. There was a display on telling the difference in fossilized bones and casts, and there was information on size comparisons for how big dinosaurs were. I know that triceratops is not as tall as a t-rex, but I was a little disappointed that a modeled t-rex was more central in the exhibit than their more unique character of Cliff. There was a really eat exhibit on modeling and what makes something a model. It really approached thinking about models and their usefulness in so many different ways which was really neat. It had everything from math models to children’s toys to illustrations of complex systems that all serve different purposes in helping us to understand the world better. My next favorite exhibit was the more native wildlife dioramas. I really enjoyed seeing how much care was put into each display. Not only were they beautiful to look at, but on the side of each display it listed who all was involved in making each display as well as the real-life location that inspired the backdrop for the scenes. It was the first place that I remember seeing it prominently featured who contributed to the diorama in the same way an art museum would credit an artist. During the month of March, the museum also has a Free Film Fridays promotion going where their regular omnimax movies are free, so I watched the Amazon Adventure film about Henry Bates and his work on mimicry and evolution in the Amazon rainforest. The footage of the rainforest was just gorgeous in the omnimax, and the story was interesting.
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I finished my day in Boston by going to a show at Improv Boston. I went to a cagematch show in their smaller theater. The space was nice, and the performance was pretty good. I also unexpected ran in to a few camp friends at the theater which was a pleasant surprise that always makes going to a show more fun. With driving back to New Haven after, I was only able to see one show but I’m hoping I will be able to drop by again and see a show in their main theater.
Saturday, I went back to Hartford. I started my day at the Connecticut Science Center. It was community day, so tickets were only $5 (they do not participate in reciprocal benefits). It was also apparently the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Hartford even though it is a week early. The Science Center seemed incredibly unprepared and inefficient in managing the number of visitors they had. I waited an hour in line just to buy my ticket to get in, and the line was probably twice as long by the time I left. The museum has 3 floors of exhibits, and they are not super well organized. When I was waiting in line, there is a big display on the wall about the three layers being space, the things that live on Earth, and what’s happening below ground on Earth so I was expected that to somewhat reflect the layout of the floors with exhibits. That was not the case at all. The top floor has one exhibit area that has a dinosaur and kids dig area, some live critters, a hurricane wind machine, and a section on wind and solar energy. The middle floor has one exhibit area with sports, health and adaptive technology and the butterfly house. The second exhibit area has a space section and an innovation and Rube Goldberg machine area. The bottom floor has their travelling exhibit hall that had a bionic tech exhibit, and the second hall had robotics, sound, and light. There is also a play area on the entry floor that has water and building kinds of exhibits. The bionic me exhibit had almost exclusively VR and single person interacting exhibits. The permanent exhibits were also much more designed for single visitor interaction than I have seen most places. The space exhibit had several 2 person very reclined seats where you could look up at videos of the different stars or space things. There were also a ton of exhibits that were only designed for kid interaction like the dino dig and the entire water and construction area on the first floor. None of these exhibits even made attempts at having science information alongside them for adults. While some of the exhibits looked like they may have been cool, on a crowded day having displays that could only be enjoyed by one or 2 visitors at a time meant I didn’t really interact with many of the exhibits. This is the first science center that I’ve really not enjoyed and been disappointed in so far.
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Even though I was disappointed in my first stop, I was looking forward to my next couple of stops. In the afternoon, I went to the Mark Twain House and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. Both houses are essentially on the same courtyard area, so it was really more of one stop with 2 attractions. It was a little weird to see so much emphasis on Mark Twain when he’s not from the area, but the house is where he wrote most of his works. There was no photography in the house or museum, but it was nice getting to see the house. It was really interesting to me seeing how many books he had, and I also enjoyed getting to see the family side of his children’s rooms and schooling area. The outside of the home was also really unique and had brick patterns that were very much decorative and showy more than functional. The Harriet Beecher Stowe house tour did allow photos and was a very different kind of tour than the Mark Twain house. While there were still many authentic pieces in her house that were fascinating to see, the tour served more to put context to the writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin than to celebrate Harriet’s life. There was information about her life, but all with the pretext of how did it affect her views and how did it affect her story. I enjoyed both tours, but I did think they were a little bit pricey for what they were. Even with the discount for visiting both on the same day, it was $33 for the tours. I did like getting to see and hear the history, but I’m not totally sure I would say it was worth it.
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My last day of travel this week took me all the way to Binghamton, Ithaca and Corning. I started the day at the Roberson Museum and Science Center in Binghamton. It was a smaller museum, but I was very impressed with their collections. The museum is built on to the mansion of a Lumber Mill owner, and the mansion is a part of the museum. The mansion itself also houses a bunch of art works that were owned by the local fine arts museum until it closed in the early 1900s, so the mansion kind of is 2 museums on its own I addition to the science museum. I really enjoyed the exhibits on the science side. The first big exhibit is a huge model train set up that is modeled after the local area in the 1950s. It was one of the bigger model train displays that I have seen, especially as its own thing as opposed to lining the walls of another exhibit. The second exhibit I really enjoyed was called Nature Trek which I think is a travelling exhibit. It contains realistic scenes with taxidermy animals and full landscapes, but the set up means there is no glass between you and the animals which was really cool. It’s set up kid of like a park or playground with low fences so you can’t touch anything on display, but you do get to see everything without the glare of glass. Upstairs there is a semi-random personal collection from around the world from one of the people who work with the museum that much more resembled what I imagine museums used to look like when all of their collections were on display to be shown off. There was also a gorgeous exhibit of nature photography and the impact and ability to connect that people have in relation to nature photography. The museum was pretty small, but I definitely enjoyed all that they had packed in to their small space.
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After Roberson, I went to the Sciencenter in Ithaca. The museum reminded me a lot of a Children’s museum with a huge climbing area and playground outside. The inside was also very kid friendly with easy to understand and interact with exhibits. While most of the exhibits were geared towards kids, the science information was still very much a part of every exhibit. It was really neat to see such an interactive and play focused environment that also had so much science presented alongside that was super easy to understand and see the connections with. The museum was decently crowded when I went, but still very enjoyable and easy to see the science behind the displays while someone else was interacting with them.
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The stop I was most excited about and was most of the reason I decided it would be worth driving all the way up to Ithaca was the Museum of the Earth at the Palentological Research Institute. The museum serves as an educational showcase for the PRI collections and explores 4.5 billion years of history. There were so many fossils and casts on display for every single time period that really showed how diverse life was during each period of time. I was really impressed at how easy to follow and smooth the transitions between different ages and eras were. So many fossils and casts were on display, and it was really impressive how having that many specimens to look at all helped add to the understanding instead of just getting overwhelming. I also really enjoyed how well they were able to add facts and supporting information in to the exhibits even with the abundance of specimens. It was a free day when I went so it was probably a bit more crowded than usual, but even with the crowd, the abundance of specimens meant there was always something new to look at. I was very impressed with the museum and collections, and I’m really glad that I decided to make the trip even if it was a bit of a long drive.
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My last stop before heading back home was the Corning Museum of Glass. The museum is part art museum, part science museum, and sometimes part live demonstration. I was too late to see any of the shows, but I’m sure that any of them would have been really cool. The variety of different kinds of art with glass was impressive to me. From beautiful blown glass sculptures to stained glass windows to more solid looking structures, I hadn’t really thought of glass as being so versatile. It was also crazy how long glass has been a part of art. There was glass art from a few thousand years BC all the way up to pieces made this year. Glass can make so many beautiful things, but it’s also been really important on the science side. Everything from beakers to cookware to optics to car windshields and streetlights was represented in the science part of the museum. The museum as a whole kind of reminded me of the Copper Art museum in that it showcased one material that has been adapted for so many different things. One of my favorite parts of the glass museum was a part where the glass artists at the museum made different things based on drawings that kids wanted made. There was a crazy looking octopus that a kid had drawn and described and seeing it as a real thing made of glass was really neat. It really made it feel like the museum is interacting in real time and that the story of glass is still being written.
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Even if this week’s adventures weren’t exactly what I had planned, I still really enjoyed most of them. I’m hoping for better weather for the rest of my time here, and I’m looking forward to getting to go on more of the trips that I’ve planned for as places start opening back up for the spring.
Adventures near and far this week! For a second week in a row, weather affected my travels. I was still able to make the most of the week, but with my time left here getting shorter and shorter I’m hoping not to lose any more days.
