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Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

I'm always loved museums. I want to visit a lot of them soon, seeing as I'm leaving for Europe next year, probably never to return to the U.S. What are some good museums to visit in the U.S.? Location doesn't matter. I've already been to The Smithsonian (and friends), Field Museum, Holocaust Museum and various aquariums and zoos. I'm interested in archeology, taxidermy animals, ethnology and weird poo poo (like the Mutter Museum or Musee Mecanique).

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The Gay Bean
Apr 19, 2004
By "various aquariums and zoos" I'm guessing this includes the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, since that's a pretty good one. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is pretty cool too, although it's a little children-oriented. That said, there's a ton of old/new technology there that's pretty cool for adults too--old cars, planes, space hardware, and such. While you're there there's the Adler Planetarium, but I haven't been there since I was a kid, so I don't know if it's still cool through an adult's eyes.

I guess my point is that Chicago is a pretty low-hanging fruit for museums.

Red Dad Redemption
Sep 29, 2007

Smoking Crow posted:

I'm always loved museums. I want to visit a lot of them soon, seeing as I'm leaving for Europe next year, probably never to return to the U.S. What are some good museums to visit in the U.S.? Location doesn't matter. I've already been to The Smithsonian (and friends), Field Museum, Holocaust Museum and various aquariums and zoos. I'm interested in archeology, taxidermy animals, ethnology and weird poo poo (like the Mutter Museum or Musee Mecanique).

If you haven't already been, the American Museum of Natural History in NYC would be right up your alley.

P.S.: Congratulations on your escape.

yeah I eat ass
Mar 14, 2005

only people who enjoy my posting can replace this avatar
I've always liked the Ringling museum(s) in Sarasota, FL. It has an art museum, a circus museum and a mansion thing you can tour. I never really liked/been interested in the circus but the circus museum was still pretty cool to go through.

Antifreeze Head
Jun 6, 2005

It begins
Pillbug

The Gay Bean posted:

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is pretty cool too, although it's a little children-oriented. That said, there's a ton of old/new technology there that's pretty cool for adults too--old cars, planes, space hardware, and such.

You forgot the Nazi submarine, which is an awesome exhibit. That exhibit builds up so well for the events surrounding the sub's capture then BOOM, you round the corner and it is just there. Fantastic layout, so much going on, PLUS a gigantic submarine.

For the OP, the La Brea tar pits museum is kinda neat but a bit small. I guess there is only so many blackened bones you can really show someone, but the wall of 400 wolf skulls is a really impressive visual. Not worth the trip to LA just for that, but they have a decent T-Rex exhibit at their Natural History Museum so if you're in the neighbourhood anyway, you may as well check it out.

If you venture into Canada too, the Canadian History Museum is very good. It is in Ottawa and there are several other national museums to visit in that area. If you head to Winnipeg, you can check out the newest national museum, which is dedicated to human rights. It might even be fully open by time you get there. The Manitoba Museum (also in Winnipeg) is pretty solid too, though you will notice some very dated didactic panels. The information is fine, tree facts don't change, but they scream late 60s/early 70s design decisions.

Brennanite
Feb 14, 2009
I recommend Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. It's actual four museums in a single complex: a firearms museum, Plains Indian museum, natural history museum, and a western art museum. It boasts the largest collection of American firearms in the world in the Cody Firearms Museum, but I think the Plains Indian Museum is the best. Plus, it's just outside of Yellowstone, so bonus National Park side trip!

Soviet Commubot
Oct 22, 2008


The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan is pretty great, there's a lot of interesting stuff there like the Wright Brother's workshop which was brought there from Ohio and the car that JFK was killed in. While you're in Detroit you can also go to the Detroit Institute of Art, the Motown museum, the Arab American history museum and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History, all of which are pretty cool.

I'm an American who moved to Europe several years ago and I really wish I'd been to more museums and stuff like that back home.

Don Gato
Apr 28, 2013

Actually a bipedal cat.
Grimey Drawer
I haven't been in years, but I remember the Spy Museum in DC was really good. Also the only museum in DC you have to pay for!


Also the Metropolitan Museum of Art is seriously really good, even if you're not into art. Last year I drove my sister insane by spending 3 hours there taking pictures of all of the different items on display in the Arms and Armor gallery.

USS Constitution, is really cool if you're in Boston. It's the oldest commissioned warship still afloat in the world, and while you're there you can walk the Freedom Trail, which is basically an interconnected series of historical landmarks throughout Boston to commemorate the city's history through the Revolutionary War.

Drewski
Apr 15, 2005

Good thing Vader didn't touch my bike. Good thing for him.
Aquariums: Monterey Bay Aquarium is the poo poo. Also the Oregon Coast Aquarium is awesome. They have a piranha tank that you can go underneath and stick your head into from below. And it's right next to Rogue Brewery...

San Francisco has some killer museums too. Natural History, SFMOMA...

Seattle has the EMP which is super cool. Right now they're doing haunted happy hours that include back to back episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark and Stephen King Bingo haha.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

A couple of my favorite museums are Storm King and the Dia Beacon.

These are both in the Hudson Valley area, about an hour and a half north of NYC.

Storm King is outdoor, open air museum. The Dia Beacon is indoors. But both of them feature art on a huge scale.

The artwork at Storm King is particularly interesting in the way it interacts with the natural landscape. But some of the pieces at the Dia Beacon are incredible as well, sculptures and in a few cases paintings that completely dominate a space and you are essentially inside of them.


Drewski posted:

San Francisco has some killer museums too. Natural History, SFMOMA...

And of course the Exploratorium!

Bip Roberts
Mar 29, 2005
Museum of Jurassic Technology.

SUBFRIES
Apr 10, 2008

Don Gato posted:

I haven't been in years, but I remember the Spy Museum in DC was really good. Also the only museum in DC you have to pay for!

There are two more now that I can think of, and they are really good IMO.

The Newseum (https://www.newseum.org) is the first, originally it was in VA, but they moved to DC a few (several?) years ago. A lot of interesting exhibits (if you like photography, there were a few really good areas), stuff for kids to do, and I think a ticket is good for two days. You can probably find discounts online.

The other one is the National Building Museum (https://www.nbm.org). Not sure how long it has been around, only became aware of it a few years ago, went once and enjoyed it. Maybe six or seven larger exhibits. When I went there was a Lego exhibit with skyscrapers built by Adam Reed Tucker, a really interesting exhibit calls House & Home, and mini-golf.

Snowy
Oct 6, 2010

A man whose blood
Is very snow-broth;
One who never feels
The wanton stings and
Motions of the sense



Gotta give it up for the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Great place for historical medical oddities and the like.

fantastic in plastic
Jun 15, 2007

The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.
The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque is cool for what it is, if you find yourself in New Mexico. Mind, about 3/4 of it is undisputedly fact-based and 1/4 of it is argument for the untrammeled blessings of nuclear power which might, or might not, be as valid as the rest of the museum. It's also got a surprisingly good kid's section (often my favorite part of science museums), or did when I went there.

Santa Fe has a number of cool Native American/colonial Spanish art & artifacts in the Palace of the Governors and on Museum Hill. It's also got a few touristy Old West museums if you like all that Billy the Kid stuff.

Darude - Adam Sandstorm
Aug 16, 2012

The Walker in Minneapolis is great even to just walk through the sculpture gardens.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Smoking Crow posted:

I want to visit a lot of them soon, seeing as I'm leaving for Europe next year, probably never to return to the U.S.
Student loans that big, OP?

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Cicero posted:

Student loans that big, OP?

Nah, I just genuinely don't like the US. Plus, the topic I want to study (Early Medieval Irish history) isn't a big thing in the U.S., so I have to travel to the UK and Ireland.

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


If you're up in the Northeast, Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven and the American Museum of Natural History in NYC are good ones to hit for your interests. Other than that, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and the Boston Museum of Science are great science museums, and the USS Intrepid museum in NYC is a great place and is currently doing an exhibit for the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope.

Retarted Pimple
Jun 2, 2002

If you have any interest in aircraft, the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Oh is one of the best in the world. Everything from Wright Flyers to stealth fighters and space capsules and it's free.

horribleslob
Nov 23, 2004
The MET in NYC is one of the world's finest museums packed with all the world's loot.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Smoking Crow posted:

Nah, I just genuinely don't like the US. Plus, the topic I want to study (Early Medieval Irish history) isn't a big thing in the U.S., so I have to travel to the UK and Ireland.
Yeah ok I can understand not coming back to live in the US if you don't like it, but never visiting it again ever seems kind of weird to me. I mean presumably you have family and friends here, you just never gonna see them again unless they go to Europe?

Smashurbanipal
Sep 12, 2009
ASK ME ABOUT BEING A SHITTY POSTER
Gotta give a shout out to the MFA and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, both in Boston.

The Walking Dad
Dec 31, 2012
Minneapolis institute of art is pretty baller. There is another Museum a 5 minute drive from it that specializes in Soviet/Russian art as well and that is also really great.

Fort Snelling in Saint Paul Minnesota is a 1960s limestone fortress built to stop the English from trying to come down the Mississippi river and during the summer they do living history there with blacksmiths/full platoons of civil war era soldiers and big loving cannons that they fire off daily. It's pretty decent.

Someone above me mentioned the Walker art museum in Minneapolis, it's not a bad idea although it personally isn't my favorite, just a hop skip and a jump over a footbridge will get you to a really awesome cathedral that blows the poo poo out of anything displayed at the walker.

The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Nov 2, 2014

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
Luckily the UK is like the museum capital of the world.

Antifreeze Head
Jun 6, 2005

It begins
Pillbug

The Walking Dad posted:

Fort Snelling in Saint Paul Minnesota is a 1960s limestone fortress built to stop the English from trying to come down the Mississippi river and during the summer they do living history there with blacksmiths/full platoons of civil war era soldiers and big loving cannons that they fire off daily. It's pretty decent.

It is so quaint how those Norwegian immigrants believed the Beatles and Rolling Stones were an actual vanguard for a British Invasion.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Cicero posted:

Yeah ok I can understand not coming back to live in the US if you don't like it, but never visiting it again ever seems kind of weird to me. I mean presumably you have family and friends here, you just never gonna see them again unless they go to Europe?

That's more of a thing where it's really expensive to fly transatlantic so for the time being I'm staying in Europe.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

Smoking Crow posted:

That's more of a thing where it's really expensive to fly transatlantic so for the time being I'm staying in Europe.

Well you said you were "never to return" to the US.

It is a bit odd that you can't afford a plane ticket from Europe to the US (which is not that bad if you plan it in advance and use a budget airline) but you can apparently afford to travel all over the US going to all kinds of museums? How does that work?

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Earwicker posted:

Well you said you were "never to return" to the US.

It is a bit odd that you can't afford a plane ticket from Europe to the US (which is not that bad if you plan it in advance and use a budget airline) but you can apparently afford to travel all over the US going to all kinds of museums? How does that work?

I can be a bit overdramatic at times. I much prefer traveling by car anyway and it tends to be a lot cheaper, if you gather some friends to do it with you.

Smashurbanipal
Sep 12, 2009
ASK ME ABOUT BEING A SHITTY POSTER

Smoking Crow posted:

I can be a bit overdramatic at times. I much prefer traveling by car anyway and it tends to be a lot cheaper, if you gather some friends to do it with you.

You don't say... Is that why you're leaving never to come back?

Damn Bananas
Jul 1, 2007

You humans bore me
I see the thread has turned a direction but..... the Houston Museum of Natural Science has a gorgeous new Paleontology hall. Pay the $5 extra for the tour guide, totally worth it (especially if you're the lone person in the tour "group").

Ms Boods
Mar 19, 2009

Did you ever wonder where the Romans got bread from? It wasn't from Waitrose!
The Johnson Victrola Museum in Dover, DE, is small, but amazing

http://history.delaware.gov/museums/jvm/jvm_main.shtml

If you like Nipper the RCA Victor (US) and HMV (UK) dog, there is a fuckton of Nipper stuff here, too. Then when you come to England you can go to the carpark in Kingston where he's buried.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9679633

(I used to do work at the museum and take student groups there; still haven't had a chance/reason to stop to visit the carpark or 'Nipper Alley' even though I drive through Kingston a few times a year going up and back to London).

Nipper Alley -- a small art museum built inside what was a public toilet

http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/4826539.Kingston_s_Toilet_Gallery_alley_named_after_HMV_dog_Nipper/

Smoothrich
Nov 8, 2009
Probation
Can't post for 3 years!
The met and the natural history museum in NYC. No reason to travel anywhere else. Seriously don't waste your time.

Monday_
Feb 18, 2006

Worked-up silent dork without sex ability seeks oblivion and demise.
The Great Twist
And while you're in NYC you can check out the Museum of Sex. I've never been but I walk past it all the time. They've got a diamond-studded dildo right in the window display for everyone to see.

Lampsacus
Oct 21, 2008

Yah that Spy museum in DC is legit. Its all like "Hey you want to know about spies? OK here are ten rooms filled with spy stuff!" And you're like "OK wow! Now I've really had the spy experience" and then the museum is like "well how about another ten rooms?" and you're like "OK wow now I know too much about spies" and then the museum then gives you a few more floors worth of rooms and you start to forget the part of life that isn't being in a spy museum.

RonMexicosPitbull
Feb 28, 2012

by Ralp
Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum in Saint Augustine is only for the more erudite and discriminating museum goers.

Apthous
Nov 2, 2014

by XyloJW
Museum of Fine Art in Boston is pretty good.

Waterfowl
Apr 18, 2005

Retarded Pimp posted:

If you have any interest in aircraft, the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Oh is one of the best in the world. Everything from Wright Flyers to stealth fighters and space capsules and it's free.

I know he said he'd already been to the Smithsonian museums, but as a DC snob I must suggest probably the least visited one(because it is a pain in the rear end to get to) and imo one of the coolest: the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in VA. It's essentially all the planes they can't fit in the Air and Space museum on the mall. Concorde, SR-71, Enola Gay, loving SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY, etc, and it's all free(parking costs dollars).

BlueBayou
Jan 16, 2008
Before she mends must sicken worse

Drewski posted:


San Francisco has some killer museums too. Natural History, SFMOMA...

SF doesnt have a museum of natural history .....

Rhymenoserous
May 23, 2008

Waterfowl posted:

I know he said he'd already been to the Smithsonian museums, but as a DC snob I must suggest probably the least visited one(because it is a pain in the rear end to get to) and imo one of the coolest: the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in VA. It's essentially all the planes they can't fit in the Air and Space museum on the mall. Concorde, SR-71, Enola Gay, loving SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY, etc, and it's all free(parking costs dollars).

I've been meaning to get back to DC to see this (It wasn't there when I lived in the area).

Evergreen Aviation Museum is pretty rad, they had an SR-71 there + titan boosters etc. And the Spruce Goose.

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Antifreeze Head
Jun 6, 2005

It begins
Pillbug
Since space and other aeronautical craft seem to be important, the Kansas City Cosmosphere and Space Centre exists and has a heavy focus on the Cold War era. They have examples of early rocketry including restores V-1 and V-2. They also have the Apollo 13 command capsule, a flown capsule from Russia (the only one outside of Russia at that) and an SR-71.

The United States national World War One museum is also in Kansas City. I'm sure it is neat, but you may get your fill from their online galleries at https://theworldwar.org/explore/exhibitions/online-exhibitions

And Kansas apparently has a Barbed Wire museum. They seem to have an annual convention in early May... I am legit considering going just to say that I have been to a convention entirely devoted to the metal the keeps cows from wandering onto roadways.

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