5975. Go to the Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc

 Since the hubby had softball in Manitowoc, I decided it was a good day to keep exploring. I discovered that the Rahr-West Art Museum was within walking distance of the park and every since hearing that it had a replica of the piece of Sputnik inside, I wanted to go.

The Rahr-West Art Museum is located in front of the Sputnik Crash Site. It is open Tue-Friday 10-4 and Sat-Sun 11-4. It is free to visit and donations are gladly accepted.  The museum itself is the former home of Joseph Vilas Jr. 

Their current exhibit was probably my favorite. It is Really BIG Prints. It is a biennial print making event which is sponsored in part by Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. The prints were of fossils and other natural things like fish. Definitely worth seeing.

The Sputnik Replica was in the hall. It also gave general history of the crash. It was not as impressive as I thought it was going to be.

Since I am not big on art, I just wandering around looking for cool pieces of art. I found several. 

I also attempted the scavenger hunt which was nearly impossible and I gave up. I "might" have found 2 or 3 of them. They just gave you a little snippet of the art work. Definitely not something for a non-art museum patron but it was fun trying to find them.

You can also take a self-guided Mansion Tour. I didn't really read about the house or the family but I definitely enjoyed the Victorian era rooms and Queen Anne Architecture. 

There was this really cool Mirro company exhibit showcasing metal kitchen items that the Mirro company made including a fun selfie spot. 

Another really fascinating part of the museum is the open storage area where items are on display while in storage. It's fun to see what other objects the museum might have acquired over the years but not really part of a current exhibit. It reminded me of the John Michael Kohler Art Preserve in Sheboygan.

Overall it was a quick visit. I really hate exploring museums, especially art museums, by myself. However, it is definitely worth checking out if you are ever in Manitowoc. The mansion alone is worth the visit. 

5961. See where Sputnik landed in Manitowoc

 Stacy and I always talked about doing a day trip to Two Rivers to check out some of the museums that are open seasonally. We finally got around to actually making it happen. One of the things I wanted to do was see where Sputnik landed in Manitowoc. We decided to start our day in Manitowoc and then head to Two Rivers

Sputnik was launched by the Soviets in 1960 as a satellite. It failed to re-enter due to mechanical issues and for two years orbited the Earth until it fell from the sky over Wisconsin. Most of it burned up upon re-entry except one hunk of metal that crashed outside the Art Museum in Manitowoc. 

We found the Rahr-West Art Museum just fine. 

We found a Memorial Plaza dedicated to the Sputnik Crash.

We saw some cool sculptures.

We never found the actual spot where Sputnik crashed... 

Apparently we need to actually look on the street itself. Who would have thought?

I also learned that Rahr-West Art Museum has a replica of the piece of Sputnik that crashed on display. 

Guess there is another trip to Manitowoc is in the future so I can see the actual spot and maybe explore the art museum. Stay tuned for Sputnik Part 2 in the future. Because what we did see, was kind of disappointing. It was nicely down but it wasn't the crash site.  

3987. Go to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc

Last year I discovered the Smithsonian Free Museum day where various Museums in the area offer free admission up 2 people. I was really looking forward to this year’s event  which was held on Saturday, September 26, especially when both the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc and the EAA Museum in Oshkosh were a part of it. Although EAA was closer, I really wanted to go to the Maritime Museum.

To partake in Free Museum Day, you must request your ticket online through the Smithsonian. You provide your email address and they send you a voucher for 2 admissions to whatever museum you select. Even though you provide your e-mail address, you never get annoying emails from them the rest of year.

I met Ryan and Tracy at the Maritime Museum on Saturday. They have a similar philosophy when it comes to museums as I do – we like to browse and not read every single piece of history. They are bigger browsers than I am. I tend to read what catches my eye where they seem to just look at everything. I also really like hands-on displays which luckily for me so did Ryan and Tracy.

The museum is three stories plus the Submarine outside with the top floor being mainly offices and a rooftop view. We started downstairs after checking out 1 exhibit upstairs. Being the kid at heart that I am, I gravitated towards the Children's Waterway Room where we played with pipes and water. Luckily we were there early enough and no one else was in there so we could be kids again. I tried to race a boat through the the locks but it kept sinking....

After we played with water, we continued exploring the exhibits downstairs including the Wisconsin Built Boat Gallery and Maritime History Gallery. Before heading upstairs, we checked out the Chief Wawatam Steam Engine. Back upstairs, we pretended we were passengers on a 1900s ocean liner before heading to the USS Cobia.

The USS Cobia is the highlight of the Maritime Museum. It is a World War II sub and touring the sub is included in your admission. Our tour guide was very informative and even though the group was large, did a very good job at explaining things and letting us see everything before meeting him on the other end of the sub. It is just a very cramped ship and is hard to have a group of 15 or so adults in one place at a time.

The Maritime Museum is a great place to learn about Wisconsin's Maritime History, tour a WWII sub, and learn about the locks systems throughout the greater Fox Valley. It is very family friendly and if you took the time to read everything, it would probably take you several hours to go through the museum. We did it in about 2 with the sub tour.

I really enjoyed the museum. I am glad that I decided to go to the Maritime Museum instead of the EAA Museum this year. Apparently I was there as a kid years ago but it's fun to go back as an adult. I just wished I had more to say about my experience. It's another museum, with cool stuff in it, that you really need to see. It's one of those museums that's hard to describe I guess. Don't just read my poorly written blog, next Free Museum Day go check it out yourself so you can really see what it's all about since I've not a bad job explaining it.