...meandering thoughts and a reminder to myself that a mundane day can be just as beautiful as a spectacular one.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Lake County Discovery Museum

While out to dinner quite a few weeks ago with my in-laws
and a big group of their friends, Elizabeth, a retired school teacher
told us about the Lake County Discovery Museum
and it's Charles Dickens exhibit.

What!?  This place is really close by and the mister & I 
had never even heard of it.  So, naturally, we decided to check
it out.  We ended up going on the very last day of the special
exhibit.  (We're getting pretty good at that last 
day exhibit thing, by the way.)

 

 The Dickens special exhibit had this cute little
carriage that you got to sit in and push buttons to
hear snippets of Dickens' novels, 

It was neat to see some real letters written by Dickens.
Seeing his handwriting first hand reminds me that the legendary
author was, indeed, a real person.


Now, I'm not sure exactly what the Eiffel Tower, Paul Bunyan, & Blue
Ox have to do with Lake County--but, I'll take it.  Why not?


What a surprise.  The museum was a lot
bigger than I had envisioned.  I just figured...
how much interesting history can Lake County
possibly have?

It turns out quite a bit.  My favorite bit of Lake County history
is the founding of Zion, IL (by a crazy Scotsman, imagine that).   Here's
one of the signs on display.  Those Zionists' seemed like a real fun bunch.

 

It turns out the Zionists weren't the only, shall we say, eccentrics in the county.
Ingleside, IL housed the  Spirit Fruit Society in early 1900s.

I find this stuff utterly fascinating.
I think we'll be returning there in the future.

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