Museums: Houdini!

Although most days at home were spent kicking it with a blanket and a snuggled up dog, one (cold very cold) day Nick, Bridget, and I headed out to see a museum in Appleton.  The History at the Castle- Houdini Exhibit to be exact.

The building is across from Lawrence University and really very pretty.

I'm pretty sure that's a typo and it was MINUS 22 degrees that day.

The main floor of the museum was all about photos from turn of the century Appleton.  The Houdini exhibit was upstairs and fairly small, but comprehensive regarding his life - he almost gave up magic, but one guy told him to focus on escapes and his fame grew from that & that he hated fortune tellers and worked to get them outlawed were two of the more interesting tidbits.  Nothing was really said about his death (which seemed odd).  We walked through the exhibit backwards (oops), but did learn alot about the guy. 

Houdini (actually Ehrich Weiss from Budapest) was a 

circus performer in his early days.  

Nick's testing out his balancing skillz.

 

There was a little stage with a box to teach you how to do the switch-out-a-person-inside-the-locked-box trick.  Here I am in my successful glory!

 Oh B.  Causing trouble.

As would be expected, Houdini's "tricks" are definitely not as cool when explained.  This demo was about how he would get out of locked jail cells.  A common way he did it?  Had a guy hide a key in there for him ahead of time.  I'm pretty sure even *I* could get out of that one! 

A very fun afternoon (before a nice lunch and fun movie) and to #92 - go to 5 museums, I say (1/5) CHECK!

Anybody have any other NE Wisconsin museums that I should check out next time??