Museums in Cleveland

Over the last couple of weeks, I have visited some museums in Cleveland. I went to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is in University Circle. If you are not familiar with Cleveland, University Circle is the home of Case Western Reserve University. It is also the home of most of Cleveland Cultural monuments, like the Cleveland Orchestra, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History houses many local archaelogical and paleantological specimens from the Cleveland area and around the world. One of my favorite specimens there is the dunkleosteous skull. I wasn't able to get a good picture, but the bones were found in a river valley that is only about a mile from where I live. The Field Museum in Chicago has a cast of it too. The best photos I took were of the Allosaurus and Tryanosarus skeletons they have on display. I also managed to get a couple of decent shots of an opossum that they had on display.

Yesterday, I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. This museum is directly on Cleveland's lake front. It was designed by I.M. Pei and houses many instruments, clothes, and stage props from classic rock acts through the decades. I got a couple of decent shots of some props used from Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Right next to the Rock Hall is the William G. Mather, a 1920's era lake freighter. These freighters were used for moving ore, grain, and other bulk materials between the industrial centers on the Great Lakes. Lake is somewhat of a misnomer. If you ever visit the American midwest, you will see they are more like fresh water seas than lakes. They are enormous.