Milwaukee Public Museum and Member Swap Day

We are members of the Milwaukee Art Museum which participates in Member Swap Day twice a year.  This gets us into any of the following museums in the Milwaukee area for free on a specific Sunday in January (and I think the other day is in May):

• Betty Brinn Children's Museum
• Charles Allis Art Museum
• Grohmann Museum
• Milwaukee Public Museum
• Pabst Mansion
• Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum

So today we took advantage of today to visit the Milwaukee Public Museum which offered a free Planetarium show.

The Streets of Milwaukee is one of our favorite exhibits and it was all decked out for Christmas yet.  (They have plans to take down all the decorations this Wednesday.)  A year or two ago, they updated this exhibit and I love how the exhibit now starts.  You get on a trolley car where the windows are replaced with screens showing you the buildings of Milwaukee in different time periods as if you are passing by them on a real trolley car.  There is also a theater in this exhibit where there is a neat video that plays about the exhibit.  We watched it last time we visited the museum and that is where we learned to look for the hidden cat in the exhibit.

When you next visit, see if you can find this cat which is hidden in the Streets of Old Milwaukee
(the flashlight on your phone is helpful).

 Another great exhibit is the butterfly exhibit and being the first ones in the exhibit this morning, the butterflies were super active.

The jeeps (there is one in the rainforest exhibit and one in the lobby area near the butterflies) are a favorite of my husband's.  Here is the one parked in the rainforest that has been part of that exhibit since I can ever remember.

My husband has also always loved the dinosaurs so that is a must-see exhibit whenever we visit.

Crossroads of Civilization, one of their newer permanent exhibits, is also a neat exhibit.  Here are a few photos:

Here are some photos and videos of a few other neat exhibits:

We ended our trip to the Museum with the Wisconsin Stargazing planetarium program.  We've seen this show before and it is just a neat chance to look at all the beautiful stars in the sky and be reminded of some of the constellations.