Tag: museums

Atomic Testing Museum

It might not be at the top of most people’s list of things to do in Las Vegas, but we spent an interesting couple of hours at the Atomic Testing Museum earlier today.

The museum mainly covers the history of the Nevada Test Site where over 900 nuclear bombs have been detonated, just 65 miles from Las Vegas, but also takes you through a general timeline of the invention of nuclear weapons.

I knew that the Americans were keen on testing nukes in the desert, but I had no idea it was so many and so close to Las Vegas. Apparently the testing was one of the factors in the growth of tourism here. People used to come to Las Vegas to visit the viewing points where they could see the explosions in the distance. Crazy!

I also had no idea the site was still in use, not for weapons testing but for training emergency services to deal with a nuclear accident or terrorist attack.

Strangely, they also had a couple of other exhibits that weren’t related to nuclear testing, including a large piece of a steel strut from the World Trade Center. There was no explanation of why, but why not?

Pinball Hall of Fame

Just a quick post today because we’re still having fun and recharging the batteries in Vegas .

We spent a couple of hours today at the Pinball Hall of Fame , a not-for-profit museum (well, warehouse)  containing a huge collection of both pinball machines and (more interestingly for me) original arcade games dating back to the 70’s.

If you’re not interested in old video games then it probably looks as dull as hell, but for me it bought back some great memories, with fully playable versions of Paperboy, Pac-man, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Tetris and Space Invaders.

Having spent many a day as a 10 year old begging my parents for 50p’s to play the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tutrles game, it was odd watching 4 grown adults playing the game again while their 10 year old looking on in bemusement. Nothing makes you feel old like realising that your favourite toys were made 30 years ago.

Anyway, the museum is a labour of love and all profits and donations go to the Salvation Army so if you can tear yourself away from everything else Vegas has to offer I can thoroughly recommend it.

 

Mount St. Helens

Our drive south began today with a trip to Mount St. Helens .

Mount St. Helens is probably the most famous active volcano in North America, mainly because of it’s large eruption in 1980 . The eruption was caused by an earthquake and the ensuing blast was big enough to blow the whole north side of the mountain off and flatten 230 square miles of trees.

We visited the main visitor centre at Johnston Ridge, named after David Johnston , a geologist killed while manning an outpost 5 miles from the mountain during the 1980 blast. The area had been evacuated but he insisted on staying and his last words on the radio was “Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!” He was never found.

The visitor centre was really interesting with some really cool exhibits, including a real life earthquake sensor which you could set off by jumping up and down on a plate (most people were able to cause the equivalent of about a 0.001 on the richter scale), a great talk by one of the park rangers and a theatre showing movies about the volcano. This led to the biggest “wow” moment we’ve had so far at the end of the movie, when the screen and curtain raised to reveal a huge window and an amazing panoramic view of the north side of the volcano right in-front of us. There was a chorus of ooh’s and aah’s from the audience, none of whom were expecting it.

We’re now in Portland and we’re driving to the coast tomorrow where we should get our first view of the Pacific.

 

 

 

Museum of Flight

Before leaving Seattle for Vancouver this afternoon we visited the Museum of Flight .

Highlights of the day included a look round one of only 4 Concordes still viewable by the public and a tour of an Air Force One plane used by presidents Nixon and JFK. We also got a ride in a 2 person 360° fighter jet simulator which Jen quite enjoyed pulling barrel rolls in.

I’ll be totally honest here. Unless you’ve visited the museum or you have a particular interest in aviation the following photos aren’t going to be particularly interesting, but I thought I’d include them anyway.

We’ve now back in Canada again and looking forward to the next 2 days in Vancouver before heading back down to Seattle again.

Buffalo Bill Museum and Cody Stampede Rodeo

Thanks to our quick sprint from Chicago we had an extra day in Cody, Wyoming today, named after William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody . We’re in the heart of cowboy country and today couldn’t have been more “yeee-haawww” if we’d tried.

We started out at the Old Trail Town , a re-creation frontier town in Cody which has been recreated from historic buildings and artifacts, dismantled, transported from their original locations and painstakingly rebuilt here. Really impressive.

Next we moved onto the Buffalo Bill Historic Centre which was a huge museum (actually 5 museums in 1), considering the small town it’s in. We had time to check out the Buffalo Bill exhibition and the Yellowstone exhibition. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to see the American Indian, Western Art or “Firearms” exhibitions because we had to get to dinner.

For dinner we’d checked ourselves into a “Chuck Wagon” dinner with a live show . A “Chuck Wagon” dinner seems to be another excuse for Americans to serve you as much meat as you can possibly eat, basically a self-service, all you can eat indoor barbecue where you can “add steak for $6” (classy!) We were treated to an hour of country and western music while we duly ate as much as we could.

The day finished with at the Cody Nite Rodeo . I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect but it was great. There were some genuinely impressive moments, including some scary looking bull riding, cattle roping and some incredible gymnastics (they may look like they’re falling off in the photos but they’re not).

Tomorrow we continue to Yellowstone.

Motown Museum, Detroit

Detroit is famous for 2 things; cars and music.

Detroit = The Motor City = Motown

From the window of our hotel we could see the Ford building and the Ford test track below. We were also just a few minutes from the Henry T Ford Museum, but we only had one morning and I’d put Detroit on the itinerary for one reason only and that was to visit the Motown Museum.

The Motown Museum is no ordinary museum, full of glass cabinets and exhibits (althouth there are some). The Museum is built inside the small residential property which housed Tamla Motown records during their busiest years and was mostly set out just like it was in the 60’s and 70’s.

Berry Gordy bought the property in 1959 and it was both his home, a recording studio, headquarters, distribution hub and artist development centre. We got to stand (and sing, badly) in the original Studio A where artists like Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, The Temptations, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson (the list goes on…) recorded their biggest hits. We also got to see how Motown really was a small cottage industry, run from a small property where everybody chipped in (the artists would pack boxes when they weren’t recording and Diana Ross sat on the front desk answering the phones when she first got there).

I think my favourite story from our (excellent) tour guide was about the candy machine in the lobby. Apparently the Baby Ruth bars were always kept in the 4th slot from the right hand side and whoever filled it was told they MUST make sure the Baby Ruth bars were 4th from the right. This was because Baby Ruth bars were Stevie Wonder’s favourite and he could only find them by hitting the 4th button from the right 🙂

Unfortunately, no photos are allowed in the museum but you get a sense of how small it is from the few photos I got of the outside.