Museums

I have been to so many museums. I couldn't count them if I tried. It's absolutely ridiculous. When my family goes on vacations (we haven't actually gone on one for several years now) we go somewhere and travel to every museum that we could possibly find along the way. In fact, there was one trip that was solely for the fact that my mom wanted to see a specific museum.

Yesterday me, my mom, and my dad went to go see The McAllister House Museum in Colorado Springs. (I wasn't aware of this fact until were half way there. I was told we were getting a door and I was getting a phone.) The plan was to take a tour of the museum like any normal family would. This of course could not happen.

It started off when my dad asked if the tree in the back was a crab apple tree. The answer was yes. Then the old lady working there offered for my dad to take some home. My dad said yes. The old lady then told us a long, boring history of the house and the founding of Colorado Springs. I zoned out and heard a few random snippets of information. Midway through the lecture the woman who was to be our tour guide came in coughing violently loud and apologizing for interrupting. The woman finished her lecture while I fidgeted in my old, uncomfortable, and loud chair. We then departed on the tour.

Our tour guide let us in the front door of the house and began telling us about the architect and his design for the molding on the doorways. It was a notches and nobs design (apparently). There was one area where one of the nob part of the design had broke off and was painted over. My dad of course had to inspect this and inform the tour guide of this. There was also a mirror that used to belong to Lincoln (yes the president). My mom explained what the jutting out piece was for (hats and gloves apparently).  We then moved into the formal parlor.

In the formal parlor, the tour guide was informing us of how it was used and blahdy blahdy blah. I wandered across the room to look at an old music box. It was cool. The tour guide informed us that they used to use it in tours, but one time it didn't stop after she started it and then the next time it didn't run at all. My dad then explained to her why that was and how to fix the problem. We then moved to the study.

By this point, I half felt like I was in a game of Clue. ("It was General Palmer in the study with a sword who determined that people needed to visit the middle of nowhere.") The guide pulled out a sword that belonged to the owner of the house and let my dad hold it. My dad then, spoke a good deal of the knowledge he has about Civil War swords. We then Moved upstairs.

Upstairs we entered the children's room. The lady explained about it and when she got to the chamber pot my dad stepped in with, "Usually they'd only use that for urine and kept number two to the outhouse. But there were times in the middle of the night where you'd have to do a Tennessee Quick Step." (This dialog is slightly abridged because I don't remember exactly, but it's pretty close. The Tennessee Quick Step part is verbatim.) After hearing about how school kids are usually horrified about chamber pots we looked at a copy of a newsletter written by one of the children. It explained in brief how the heating system in the house worked so my dad extrapolated. We then moved to the parents bedroom.

In here there was an old crib. My dad got permission to cross the velvet rope and inspect how the rocking mechanism on it worked. Crawling on the floor he inspected and explained it. Then he picked up a dead moth (which he disposed of out the kitchen door later on) and we headed downstairs to the Dining room.

Interesting enough in the dining room I actually learned something. My dad did briefly lecture on how people would paint pine molding to look like oak. What I learned: Colorado Springs back in the late 1800s and early 1900s had a high British population and was called Little London. Most of the population had British accents. This could be the reason for the use of the word "warsh" among local people of my mother's age or older. We then moved into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, we learned about... Well actually we didn't learn that much because my dad already knew it all so no one really lectured that much. However, we did discuss the equivalent of a 19th century easy bake oven. Then I noticed a little nicknack that had a sign that said, "We don't know what this is. Do you?" Since my dad was lecturing on everything else in the house I figured we'd see what he had to say on the matter. After fiddling with it for a minute or two he determined that it was a pencil sharpener. We then headed outside while my father bragged, "You didn't think I could figure it out, did you?"

Once outside my father started his collecting of crab apples (forgot about that didn't you; so did I). He started picking them up and handing them to me while the old lady working in the office came out and brought us a grocery sack to put them in. My dad then lectured her and our tour guide on how they could sell them as starts for crab apple trees and make a bunch of money because the tree wasn't a hybrid. After that lecture, he suggested that he could do an event where he showed people what it was like to be in a Civil War Cavalry. While he was discussing this option, we moved into the gift shop and my mom and I bought some books.

We did eventually convince him to leave and get the tasks that I was originally informed of done (even if we were three hours late picking up my younger sister).