Amy at The World Is A Book has traveled to many unique cultural sites around the world, and she challenges us to share something UNIQUE.

Funny thing is, there are a lot of unique things that seem pretty common. Like snowflakes. Each one is unique, but where I come from, they’re also common. People. Trees. Same thing. So…how about….

MUSEUMS! I was raised up loving museums. My parents were members of some of the best in the land — the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, for instance. When I was 10, they signed me up for classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Five years ago, I worked part time at two different museums in Wisconsin: Discovery World and Old World Wisconsin. Then, I began to work for a land trust in Washington County. The President of the Board of Directors runs a private fire service museum called The Venerable Fire Collection.

Working at a museum is a very stimulating job. Initially, there’s the excitement of learning as much as you can about the subject of the museum. Then there is the thrill of sharing those discoveries with the public – young and old and everyone in between. Some days are downright exhausting. You spend hours on your feet, responding to a stream of visitors with questions. Other days, the visitors stay away in droves. You pace the same space over and over again, looking at the same artifacts. Still, you pinch yourself and calculate how lucky you are to be able to spend a whole day in a museum AND get PAID for it!

Eventually, I grew so attached to those places that on my off day, I would visit with my camera. Here are some of my favorite shots from the Wisconsin museums I mentioned. Can you guess which photo was taken at which museum? 

Old World Wisconsin

I look forward to discovering many more museums in my lifetime.