Pompeii

June 20, 2023

It was pointed out to me that it had been a long time since we had gone to a museum. My children love museums and the rumblings were starting to get louder, so I decided I should do something about it. They weren't wrong, when I looked at all my museum membership cards, they had expired quite some time ago. I guess it's only me who feels as though we were just at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI). Multiple trips a year over decades will do that to you, I suppose.

I knew there was a special exhibit at MSI on Pompeii so it seemed as good an excuse as any. (Plus, if I'm going to buy a membership, I love their inclusive family policy.) Everyone was thrilled to be going somewhere (anywhere?) and we got all the morning jobs done including getting lunches made and dinner in the crockpot in a timely manner. We were off.

I was a little concerned about how crowded it would be. Normally we homeschoolers eschew museums during the summer preferring the much less crowded times when school is in session. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how empty it was. We got tickets to everything we wanted. We started out with the Pompeii exhibit. I headed to where the special exhibits usually are and we walked in. We went through the three or four rooms of sparsely displayed items and body casts (I'm still uncomfortable about the body casts. It seems... icky on many levels.) And then there was the gift shop. I was underwhelmed by it all. It certainly didn't live up to the hype. We have a discussion about what we want to do next and everyone thought we should eat lunch then wander until our movie times. So we headed down to the lunch area. As we were just about to get on the escalator, I look up and see... another Pompeii exhibit.

Huh? I'm so confused. So we wander over and they scan our ticket and let us in. The first half of the exhibit.

Yes, indeed, we saw it backwards. There was a bit more to see in the first half. I'm thinking, boy, some better signage is in order. Afterwards, I did see lots of signs pointing to the second exhibition room, but a sign on the second one explicitly stating it was part two would have been welcome. Either way, we saw it all.

It was only later on when I was texting with TM that I learned he helped build the lighting for the exhibit at work. I ask the children around me if they knew that and they all nod yes. I wanted to go back in to pay more attention to the lights because clearly I was the last to find it out.

We had lunch, we wandered, we saw two movies on the screen formerly known as the Omnimax, then headed home. This turned out to be the least fun part of the day because it took twice as long to get home. Inching along on I55 for an hour is no one's idea of a good time.

Some pictures from the day. As you can see, I have ceased to even try to get children to stand nicely and orderly for photos anymore.