Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Vacation, Part 5 of 7: A Laundromat Mishap and Two Museums

On Wednesday, we made plans to start trekking around the area to seek out new places to go.  Unfortunately, though, we got a late start because when I went into town early to do our laundry at the Front Royal laundromat, some crazy lady stole my whole set of keys as soon as I walked in!  Later, when Steve came to bring me a key, I think she thought I would be leaving my van there.  Steve saw a towing service pull up and check out my van.  Tough luck, lady!  Steve had a spare key, and I drove away.  I did report it at the local police station, but I doubt those keys ever turn up.  It’s an incident that cost me $160 to replace my keys and keyless entry remote.  Lesson learned never to set my keys down unattended, even for a second!

Eventually, though, we did manage to head out for some fun after lunch.  Hayden and I had picked up a lot of visitor brochures at the visitor’s center, and we found a place called the Museum of the Shenandoah in Winchester, VA.  We only had an hour to explore it before it closed for the day, so we were fortunate to find out that admission is free on Wednesdays!  There was a lot of cool stuff there, including a room full of miniature home displays.  They were like beautiful doll houses with ornate furniture in them and lots of detail.  Beautiful!

20150408_152117   20150408_152148

On the grounds beside the museum was a manor house.  It was so beautiful inside! 

20150408_160025 20150408_160046

Inside the library, there were some interesting collectibles that belonged to the owner of the house, Joist Hite.

20150408_160127   20150408_160216

Shown here is a 2,000 year old Chinese terra cotta horse and a British statue that says George Washington on it, only it’s actually Ben Franklin!

When were finished up there, we hopped on over to an old favorite place…the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum.  We’ve been there many times on our previous trips up to the cabin, and the kids always have a great time.  Our family pass to the Western North Carolina Nature Center gets us into this museum for free through reciprocal admission. 

A user's photo.

We were surprised to find that it had changed location into a much larger building since our last visit.  They aren’t done setting up all of the exhibits yet, so Hayden was disappointed to find the rock climbing wall hadn’t yet been installed.  That was his favorite part!

********************

Watch for tomorrow’s installment in our vacation series:  A Plantation and a Walking Tour.

No comments:

Post a Comment