03.14.09
“Museum”
It’s been far too long since I’ve posted. Trying to post has seemed like a huge task since I want to update on every little event since January. Instead I’ll jump right in to current stuff and fill in the stuff as it comes.
Today we decided to go explore what Merced, CA had to offer for children’s activities. So I googled “Children’s activities Merced, CA”. Seemed logical to me. My search results:
| Agricultural Museum |
| Applegate Park Zoo |
| Lake Yosemite County Park |
| Merced County Courthouse Museum |
| Merced Multicultural Arts Center |
| Yosemite Wildlife Museum
Without going into too much detail, I’ve been to all of these places many times in my life. Aliyah loves the Applegate Zoo–all 20 minutes to see well-kempt zoo. The rest on the list, I knew that she probably wouldn’t enjoy at her age. So my mom and I had never heard of the Agricultural Museum, so we’d try that. We finally found it on the outskirts of town. It shared a storefront with an antique store. We had a great time looking at all the great stuff. The shopkeeper was pushing to sell it since he is moving in two weeks. We bought a few things including a $12 antique solid wood hobby horse that Aliyah screamed about getting off so that we could purchase it! We were ready then to go check out the “museum”. The shopkeeper said it was out back–he’d opened the building and be sure to visit the working Blacksmithy. We opened the outside door to a cluttered yard of old stuff (for a lack of a fair and accurate description.) In the array of rusting treasures were once functional outhouses, gas cans from different centuries, rotted rail car wagon, a bellows twice the size of Aliyah’s height and width and two working anvils with their points sticking out ready to “poke your eye out.” It was interesting. I held Aliyah’s hand closely and we ventured through the layers of curiosities. It was interesting to hear my wise (I mean old) mother describe all the objects she recognized from her grandfather’s workbench. We never found the “building” and didn’t want to try to every door knob. I felt very confused at the oddity of it all and just laughed most of the way through it. After all, I wasn’t expecting much, but this was called a “museum.” No placards or self-guided tour. We just checked out a collector’s yard. Probably not the best place for “Children’s Activities” Although I was saying that I didn’t expect anything, I guess you can’t always rid myself of those expectations. On the way home we saw several (modern) tractors in a field on the way home–we almost got out to let Aliyah climb in the seats!  a record player!
 from my Mom's perspective
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