What do you do when the power goes out? You make the best of it with a trip around town. This time we went to Big Boys for their breakfast bar for the first time in over a year, then we made our way shopping in Trenton. With the power still off we went through Elizabeth park but even then the power was still off, so finally we made our way to Belle Isle and enjoyed the sights of the island. Eventually while we were on the island the power did come on and so we finished up our day in Detroit and finally went home to a house with power. Luckily we never opened the refrigerator or freezer so all our food was still cool/cold. A very interesting day for sure.
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Category: Museum
Museums
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Belle Isle 2025
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Marshall Blues Festival and Museum of Magic 2025
I think this was our first visit to the Blue Festival since the pandemic. It was an extremely hot day, mid nineties to nearly one hundred degrees. The first thing we noticed was the attendance was down, probably due to the extreme temperatures.Mom got to see a few bands while James and Dad explored Marshall. We stopped in to visit the American Museum of Magic and took the tour. They had removed their stage since our last visit and we found a peppers ghost effect that we played with where your face turns into a skull.
After we rejoined Mom we did a little shopping. Mom got her poster and t-shirt and everyone was happy. Too bad it was so hot but hey, thats summer in Michigan. We all had a great time and it was good to get back to normal after a long layoff for us in attending this festival.
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Sea Shell City 2025
Sea Shell City is usually a stop on the way home from Macinaw but this year we decided to stop on the way up. Sea Shell City is about 15 miles South of the Mackinaw bridge. James had to buy another t shirt as the one he got last year as a gift was a size big, so he bought one a size smaller. Mom enjoyed shopping and buying some rock candy, and Dad was fascinated by a sharks head hanging on the wall and thought it would look great on the bathroom wall for Halloween. Unfortunately the sharks head was not for sale but other than that it was a great time at Sea Shell City. -
Wroclaw Poland Museum
The trip to Central Europe was certainly not all business and school work. There was plenty of sight seeing on the schedule and plenty of sites to see and it is a good thing for James because he is not sure when his next chance to visit Poland will occur.A beautiful museum that was filled with all sorts of motorcycles and automobiles through Polands history was one of the first stops. Lots of items from the war were on display here as well.
Wrocław is the third largest city in Poland and one of the most popular cities in Poland – and it’s no wonder. Its unique atmosphere, unique architecture and monuments, atmospheric restaurants and large number of tourist attractions mean that there is no place for boredom in this city.
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2024 Day Nine of Paris Trip
The last full day of the Paris trip was a free day for the students and most decided to go to Euro Disney for the day, but James had other plans. James left for London England!James had to get up early to make the train, in fact so early that the subway was not even open and he had to walk to the train station. Once there he enjoyed a trip along the French landscape till the “Chunnel”. The Channel Tunnel, also referred to as the ‘Chunnel’, is the longest underwater rail tunnel in the world and connects southern England (Folkestone Terminal) to northern France (Calais Terminal) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. From there he went through customs and to the British Museum where he had bought tickets weeks before.
It did rain while he was in London and James had to buy a new souvenir bag.
After seeing the museum, Big Ben, and Parliament – James returned back to France (going through French Customs again) and made it back to the hotel mere minutes before the hotel curfew.
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2024 Day Seven of Paris Trip
Another wow day as James got to visit the most famous art museum in the world! The Louvre is home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.The Louvre, as so many of the other places James visited, is the setting for another famous movie, “The Davinci Code”.
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2024 Day Six of Paris Trip
Wow, what a day! Today included a visit to the Orsay Museum in the morning and the Paris Opera in the afternoon. Now opera may sound a little boring, but not this opera due to its one “notorious” occupant – The Phantom of the Opera.The Musée d’Orsay (English: Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum’s opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.
The Opéra de Paris (Paris Opera) is the primary opera and ballet company of France and was the setting for the book and musical “The Phantom of the Opera”. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d’Opéra, and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the Académie Royale de Musique, but continued to be known more simply as the Opéra. Classical ballet as it is known today arose within the Paris Opera as the Paris Opera Ballet and has remained an integral and important part of the company. Currently called the Opéra national de Paris, it mainly produces operas at its modern 2,723-seat theatre Opéra Bastille which opened in 1989.
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2024 Day Four of Paris Trip
Todays schedule included a trip to the Palace of Versailles on this overcast morning in France. Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623. With his death came Louis XIV who expanded the château into the beginnings of a palace that went through several changes and phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.Napoleon, following his coronation as Emperor, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.
After returning from Versailles, James’ class visited the Eifel tower at night and got some great pictures
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Washington DC Smithsonian Natural History Museum 2018
With rain in the afternoon on Saturday we spent the time exploring a couple of the Smithsonian museums. The Natural History Museum was very crowded and we had to wait in a 20 minute line to get in (they do security scans in all the museums). Dad visited the Smithsonian decades ago and wanted to see the dinosaurs, but that part of the museum was being renovated and he never got to see it, so this visit we made it up to Dad. The museum also hosted the Hope Diamond which was stored in the gem area of the museum. Awesome displays of animals and man were on display over several floors and they even had a butterfly exhibit with live butterflies, but we did not visit it since we see this on our Macinac visits and it had a long line. The ocean exhibit was fantastic with everything from whales to skeletons of whales which were hanging down from the ceiling. The mammal exhibit was like going to a zoo and we were thinking that probably is where many of the animals came from after they passed on. The dinosaur exhibit had a T Rex and Triceratop skeletons on display along with many smaller dinosaurs. You could also peer into the lab and watch the people work on fossils which was reminded us of a scene in Jurassic park. All in all it was very much worth the wait. -
Washington DC Smithsonian American History Museum 2018
The forecast called for rain Saturday afternoon so we planned on visiting the Smithsonian during this time frame. The first museum was the American History Museum which had a variety of artifacts including the First Lady exhibit, Julia Childs exhibit, and even Archie Bunkers chair. Without a doubt the highlight was the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to compose the National Anthem. It was in a special area and photography was not allowed to help preserve it so the only pictures we got are from the outside of the exhibit. So much to see and so little time while visiting the Smithsonian.Check out the slide show below
