Museum Day

Today was Austin's 11th annual Museum Day, a free re-discovery of Austin's museums. 32 museums participated and opened their doors free to the public. We explored four of them today.

Our first stop was the LBJ Library and Museum on the University of Texas' campus. The museum docents couldn't have been friendlier as our two wild boys excitedly ran through the newest exhibit, To the Moon: The American Space Program in the 1960's. The buddies flew flight simulators, looked at rocket replicas, and posed in front of replicas of our first 7 US astronauts. Then, we sat through a 15 minute laser show set to popular 60's music. It was a great exhibit!

Our next stop was the Umlauf Sculpture Garden. This was our second trip to this outdoor museum but it was very different from our first. Today, over 25 sculptors set up booths with their artwork and gave demonstrations. And the buddies got to try their hands at their own sculpture creations. They found the stiff clay more difficult to work with than their usual play- doh, but enjoyed themselves nonetheless.

After that, we crossed the river and headed to the Austin Children's Museum, a must-do for any Museum Day goers with kids. It was a zoo. We stayed as long as Steve and I could handle it, which was about an hour and a half. The feature exhibit was "Play it by Ear", a very cool, hands-on music exhibit. Imagine 7,000 square feet of wall to wall children banging on pots and pans and that's just about what it was like. But the buddies loved exploring all the different exhibits, especially the train station and a very cool machine where they launched wooden balls down chutes and tracks.

Our final museum of the day was the Blanton Museum of Art, a very nice (almost too nice for us!) art museum on campus. I was a little nervous bringing two wild boys into a place filled with priceless art, but they did great. The museum did a phenomenal job making the event family friendly. Our boys made their own art at stations outside the museum and watched a music show, but skipped story time. Smartly, the museum stationed friendly docents near the modern art sculptures that looked very much like playground equipment, and engaged the kids, asking them what the art looked like to them (and reminded them that it wasn't for climbing). Our two explored ancient Roman sculpture, American and European paintings, and modern art (their favorite).

View today's pictures here.