Day 1298: A Closer Look

Since there's so much to see in Marceline, Missouri, I figured it might be fun to give you an extra glimpse inside the museum before my video on the town next week. The museum is in the old train depot, which offers plenty of space, and the majority of the artifacts inside were either donated to the town by Walt himself or to the museum by Walt's sister Ruth. It means the building is filled with unique pieces that you can't see anywhere else on earth! 

The above pictures are in one of the front rooms, which is filled with train memorabilia and artifacts from the film that premiered in Marceline, The Great Locomotive Chase. Just off of this room, you can enter the majority of the museum, which features the artifacts from Walt's sister. One of the room also features a documentary on Walt Disney, which is over an hour long, but offers a nice chance to sit and relax if you're there for more than a few hours. I happened to walk in at the perfect moment of the documentary, when Walt was giving the opening speech for Disneyland. Since I visited the museum on Disneyland's birthday, it seemed like fate that I would catch that portion of the film. 

The brick you see in the picture above is from the original school that Walt attended when he lived in Marceline. Walt had the town promise to keep the cornerstone of the building if they tore it down, and when they did, they were sure to listen. The stone, which is much larger than it looks in this picture, is sitting next to the school replication on the second floor, nearby the model of Disneyland. 

When I mentioned that the Train Depot houses the museum, I'm not kidding. Much of the original building remains, only refurbished to house the museum. The ticket office still stands, filled with extra artifacts that would have been normal during Walt's time in Marceline. Outside, you can still stand on the platform where Walt would as a child, watching one of 70 daily trains go by, and yes, they do go by. You can't spend more than a half hour at the museum without hearing at least one train pass, and it really brings the entire thing together. 

Oh, and if that wasn't enough Disney for you, just as you used to be able to do at Walt Disney World, you can buy a brick to be engraved and added to the path just outside the building. I loved the connection, whether they did it on purpose or not, and while I didn't purchase a brick this time, I hope to do so next time I'm there to continue to help support such a wonderful museum! 

As I said, I'll have a video out next week on more of Marceline, so be sure to keep an eye out for that too! 

Have a magical day!

Day 158: A Trip to the Museum

Since today was our actual last day of school, well it was mine because I went back, my best friend Megan and I decided to go to the local museum. Luckily we live in an awesome town, the Home of the Hamburger (which I'll talk about more later), and it means that we're also lucky to have an awesome small town museum. It's honestly one of the best ones around if you ask me, and it just opened last summer (a grand opening that I attended!)

Either way, there were several things that really reminded me a lot of Disney, and I figured I would share, because that's what I blog about!

The first thing I noticed and felt was insanely awesome is the fact that in the year since it's opened, there's a lot of new technology that's been added, like an audio animatronic of our very own! That's right, in our little museum there's seriously two audio animatronics! I felt it was really awesome because there's a grandma who seems to be right out of Carousel of Progress too! I mean, seriously, she acted just like the grandma (only this one made a few more pies than the one in CoP). Either way, there's also a grandpa (who technically isn't out yet because that addition opens this July, I just got a sneak peak!) It was awesome to see that something Walt Disney did and worked on himself has taken up a home here in our own town. I mean, he did invent audio animatronics after all! Also, animatronics is an extremely difficult word to spell.

The other awesome piece of Disney was in the special photography exhibit that's at the museum right now. We have two wonderful photographers that run their business here in Seymour, and they have had an exhibit running at the museum for the past few weeks called "A Few of Their Favorite Things." While the exhibit as a whole is wonderful, there was one picture that really caught my eye. The picture got my attention for two reasons, first because it's Disney, and second because of the title: Illuminations. I thought that while the picture had nothing to do with the Illuminations I know, it was still pretty ironic. And so, there's my favorite picture in their collection.

Yeah, a little bit of Disney in my own hometown, although I never really questioned that!

Here's today's Disney History: 1946: BBC-TV in England returns to the airwaves after a near 7-year absence (due to the second World War). In an attempt to emphasize continuity, the first day's program includes the cartoon Mickey's Gala Premiere (the same Disney cartoon that had been abruptly interrupted in September 1939, the day Germany attached Poland).

Have a magical day!