Instead of going to Meijer Gardens this past week we went to the Grand Rapids Public Museum. We only had 1.5 hours in there so a limited # of pics.
Learn more about uranium glass here.
terracotta warrior replica
close-up of face
info on the replica
concretion. very large
close-up of surface
“robot zoo” fly. neat but creepy also
grandbaby working at exhibit
uranium glass (under black light)
The weather has been gorgeous. Here are some pics from around the yard.
sneezeweed
ripening peppers
roses still blooming
Tao Talk 
I always enjoy your doodads. The Grand Rapids Public Museum looks neat. The story behind the Terracotta Warriors sounds intriguing. Spending time with your grandbaby and watching her engage with the exhibit must have been fun. Your pics from the yard look nice as well! :-)
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Thanks so much, Christian. It’s been a busy summer full of happy times. Hoping you get a chance to get out there on your bike. Do your wife or son ride bikes? Do you have bike paths there?
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I still look forward to riding my bike, now that September is here, which should mean lower humidity levels very soon. My son and wife aren’t into bike riding, and we don’t have many dedicated bike paths, but this shall not prevent me from getting out there. It’s more the stuff life can throw at you. Unfortunately, this past week was overshadowed by a large downed tree in our front yard, which left us without electricity for two days and caused some damage. Luckily, nobody got hurt, and least our power and cable service have been restored. But we still have to deal with the aftermath, including our home owner’s insurance.
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Oh no, Christian, sorry to hear it. The extreme weather we are having are taking out a lot of big trees. Cleaning all of that up will take some time. Being without power is no joke. Happy it has been restored.
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Thanks. Considering the tree could have fallen on our house, it could have been a lot worse. It’s also pretty humbling to realize how dependent we are on electricity!
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You’re welcome. You’ve got a good attitude about it all. Yes, it doesn’t take long to realize it. #1 is water and #2 is phone charging. Others may reverse those 2 ;)
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I know, God forbit, the friggin’ phone runs out of juice. Luckily, we had a bunch of fully charged powerbanks.
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Ah, yes, there is the grandbaby being put to work, as well as the animtronic anatomy and the radioactive glassware.
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The yard looks great and an intriguing museum. (K)
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It’s a neat place to wander through. It’s a relatively new building. They use the old behemoth for storage now. Would love to walk through the old one. The machines one and the robot zoo are temporary exhibits. They also have a planetarium there that does a laser show of Dark Side of the Moon (along with the usual planetarium things.) It also has a full carousel that is is in a building overlooking the river, but it’s shut down because of whatever construction they are doing. They also have a whale skeleton hanging in there, named Finny.
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Hopefully they will reopen that carousel so you can visit and photograph it. Which makes me wonder if the Central Park carousel is still open…
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Ooh, Kerfe, I hope you go and see and take pics. Speaking of carousels, our local cinemaplex is called the carousel and it has one in there! I think the one at the museum has old refurbished ones where the cinema has replicas.
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That’s great! I will try to get there soon.
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A lovely share Li. Thanks
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My pleasure, Sadje :)
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🌹🌹🌹
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Fun! The Denver planetarium used to do a laser show to Dark Side of the Moon-my all-time favorite!
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Glad you know what I’m talking about, Dana. It’s so relaxing to sit back in those comfy seats and fall into it.
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Yes!
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I can’t help it, I love uranium glass.
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The museum worker went on for awhile about how safe it is. I have to wonder if that’s true?
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I think you get a very small dose, but I do remember my Mother panicking over a couple of her pieces when the whole radiation is dangerous thing hit her. :-D
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After seeing these at the museum I happened across the book, “The Radium Girls…” and have started reading it. Already totally fascinated by this unknown chapter in American history. Starts in 1917.
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It really was a weird time in our scientific and cultural history, and, ohh.. those poor girls. :-(
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I just totally dig that uranium glass…I would not want to get near it but I have to admit….I love it.
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What was interesting was how stringently the young man holding the black light over it argued at how safe it is because its “half life.” If I remember my days of studying and protesting against nuclear power plants, uranium has a half-life of 10,000 years. No expert but I don’t think I’ll be handling any uranium glass for at least that long.
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Yes! I remember a story about these women handling radioactive objects in the early 20th century…one wrote a journal about it…you still can’t see it because of the radiation. Needless to say all died.
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:(
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Last week we went to a local museum we had never been to (actually two as they were sort of connected). They were only blocks apart. One displayed local juried water color paintings and the other was the Demnuth museum.
One year I grew cati from seed. But they don’t like to be transplanted… I might try again. But probably not as I am trying not to have too many plants to take care of. Especially if I want to travel… Which may or may not happen. We were thinking of going away in the winter – but we have a sick relative… So we canceled that trip.
Shorter overnight or weekend trips might work. :)
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Jules, amazing you grew cacti from seed. I was reading about how to cut lobes from my prickly pear to start new plants and might try that in the spring. Sorry you had to cancel your trip. I’m looking through Amtrak material and plan on taking a trip of some kind in 2025. I also found a cool “junkyard art” kind of place about an hour south of here that I want to visit. I am glad you got out to see some art at local museums. It’s always a treat to see a creative mind manifest itself in art.
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Good luck with the prickly pears…
Our trains the roomettes don’t have their own rest rooms, just in the car. If you get a roomette or higher (for us anyway) meals would have been included in your own dining car (I think). If you got a coach ticket you had better bring your own food. And it depends on how long the trip is and where you are going. There a good You-tube videos about Amtrak train travels. :) Good Luck. We were actually looking at taking a train were we could take our car… but that was getting expensive – it could have also been that it was during the holidays. Maybe there are other times when it isn’t as busy and the fare is reasonable.
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I think I saw the Amtrak video you’re talking about, and I learned a lot from it. I would like a roomette (including meals) and am ok with sharing bathroom with others. I may try a short one first to see if I like it.
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One we saw suggested getting two roomettes across from each other – depending on how many people you are traveling with – so you could actually see the different scenery. Not much good while you are sleeping though ;)
Years ago when our boys were very small we took a train and had a roomette…maybe a room I though we had a bathroom. But maybe not. Kinda worry about that bit when you wake several times in the night ;)
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Good food for thought on all. If shared facilities my roomette would have to be close to it for that very reason.
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We can learn quite a bit from You-tube. ;) A friend of ours who did/does travel says that making train reservations at least two weeks ahead can save you some dough.
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Concretion is a new term to me… thank you for that! Quite fascinating.
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New to me also, Steve. I should amend “very big” on my caption after reading the card on them. This one was about 2 feet across, but it looks like they can get massive. I bet whomever found it was thrilled.
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