Casual Conversation

Phipps absolutely counts! My brother used to live in Pittsburgh, so I know that place well. I haven't been in several years since my brother moved back to our hometown... I should find an excuse to get back there.

I recently had a business trip to Rochester NY to visit a prospective integrator's site, and then we were going to be driving down to Painted Post, NY to visit their second facility, which is directly next door to Corning, NY, home of the Corning Museum of Glass, which has always been somewhere I have wanted to go. Originally, it was just supposed to be me, which was perfect, as I could have my own time to go to the Corning museum, and also an art museum in Rochester. At the last second, my boss had his schedule open up, and he ended up coming... and he would rather sit at the hotel bar and consume literally 19 Miller Lights on a random Tuesday night... I don't even drink, so that was a... "fun" afternoon. And I did broach the topic of at least stopping by the museum of glass, but he had a tight timeline and needed to be home asap the day we left... I'll just need to head back out to Rochester/Corning on my own time!

Ditto on the Phipps Conservatory and the Tacoma Glass Museum, both are great. Tacoma has a number of good museums. The WA State History Museum, Tacoma Art Museum (they get great exhibits), and the Lemay Car Museum are all great as well.

Favorite museums would probably have to be the Smithsonian's in DC, the Natural History and Air/space in particular. Of course there are a bazillion museums in DC though, and I haven't seen MANY of them.

I almost went to the Tar Pits last year on a work trip to Anaheim, but ended up driving out through Joshua Tree National Park. I had never really been to "the desert" before, and ended up having an amazing, almost spiritual experience. I really want to go back. Waiting for the flights to Vegas to go even lower to try and lure people in, then just rent a car and drive off into the sunset.

There's something to be said about a small museum. I've been to plenty of very small places, and have enjoyed them all. It is great to get away from the bustle of a super popular place. I talked about a steam-engine museum I found in my town in another reply here, it's its own little magical place.

I have been to Chicago a couple times in the past, but have always been super busy. I did find time to make it to the Museum of Science and Industry, which was amazing (I went again the second time I went to Chicago lol)

I will be in Chicago AGAIN this November, and will have ~2 free days (A Friday and a Sunday). Do you have any good local recommendations? I have tentatively just chosen the other 2 big'ns I haven't been to yet, the Field Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

I'm also a space geek. I've never been to Houston, but I had a weeklong work trip to Dallas last year. I was VERY tempted to take my unlimited-mileage rental down to Houston to go to the space center, but I just couldn't fit it into all the other work stuff I had to do.

That trip was actually one of the very few that I didn't end up going to a museum. There just wasn't anything within a reasonable distance that I found interesting.

I have been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida once, back in college, while I was at a competition for the NASA robotics competition I was part of... And I've been itching to go back ever since, on my own terms, without other responsibilities and a competition to attend to. Art Basel is in Miami December, which is a great time to fly into Orlando, it's super cheap, trying to suck in all the tourists... Then I was thinking of driving down to Miami, and flying back from Miami, but apparently there's rail service between Orlando/Miami (or very cheap flights), I just need to figure out if it's reliable enough to risk my itinerary on it haha.

And there are plenty of interesting museums in the middle of nowhere. Right near my work there's a tiny little museum called the New England Steam and Wireless museum, which hosts a couple dozen historic stationary steam engines (the largest one has a ~20 foot flywheel or something crazy like that), and they almost all work, and they have several running most weekends. It's really cool because you can get right up close to the working engines (and could definitely be killed if you aren't careful), so it's definitely an up-close-and-personal experience. I'd have never known about it without some serendipitous chance, I just drove down a back road one time to look for a place to set up my hammock by the river and read, and I saw the sign. I guess it's not truly "the middle of nowhere", but it's a poorly advertised diamond in the rough.

I want to work up the courage to start traveling overseas more... Unfortunately the current world opinion of the USA kinda has me hesitant. I went to Amsterdam this past March, my first time leaving the country, and really REALLY wanted to go to the Rijksmuseum, but my (now ex) girlfriend didn't think we would have enough time, so we didn't end up going... I guess I'll just have to go back on my own.

Norway is another bucket list destination for me, I'll add the Munch to my list!

It's sort of the same for me, only the last ~5 years or so have I really gotten into museums and that kind of experience. Now, I can't get enough, and can spend all day in even the most tiny niche museum.

Despite living a hop, skip, and a jump away from Boston, I've never been to the Gardner museum, even though I hear about it all the time on GBH radio. I'm not really as big of a fan of classical art, but one of these days I WILL run out of other things to do, and I will eventually make it to the Gardner museum haha.

I wonder if the "Piss portraits" are still there. Last time I went was like 8 years ago, so it's probably rotated out. I love weird stuff, so I definitely enjoyed the Warhol museum.

And that musical instrument museum sounds fun! I'll add it to my museum list if I ever find myself in Phoenix.