Museum day...feeding the mind

After enjoying yesterday viewing live things at the zoo, I spent today basically looking at dead things.  Or, at least inanimate objects.  Well, there was that one strange thing...oh, I'll get to that in a bit.  I went to San Diego's Balboa Park to visit some of the many museums there.  I bought the Day Pass for admission to five museums.

The first museum of the day was the anthropology based Museum Of Man.  They had a special exhibit called Instruments Of Torture which was very interesting.  Basically, they literally displayed contraptions used throughout history to torture people.  There were the well-known items like the rack and thumb screws, but there were also others that I never heard of.  Sadly, there are some countries in our present day who torture their citizens using some of the same devices I saw.  In the Museum Of Man, they had some real mummies.  I won't show the humans ones to spare those who are sensitive to that sort of stuff.  But, here is a falcon who was most likely mummified along with its human owner.

After I left the Museum of Man, I was walking along a sidewalk when an object on the ground caught my eye.  More so because...it was moving!  I recognized it immediately for what it was...a lizard tail.  But, where was the lizard?  Whatever happened to it, I hope it got away, sacrificing its tail in the process.  Oh, it will grow back, which is the cool thing about lizards.  What was REALLY funny...a few people walking next to me totally ignored the wriggling tail.  I guess they see bodyless tails all the time?  I sure don't!

The next museum I visited was the Automotive Museum.  They had an exhibit on low riders and the usual collection of old cars.  The one item that piqued my interest was a vintage Jack In The Box drive-up order thingy...you know, the thing you talk to in the drive-up lane.  While other fast food places just have a voice box, Jack In The Box had...Jack.

Continuing on, I walked next door to the Air and Space Museum.  Besides the usual vintage aircraft, there was a special Ripley's Believe It Or Not exhibit.  I can't recall ever seeing a similar exhibit, and this one was particularly entertaining.  There were a lot of oddities and unusual items, including this amazing truck built entirely of matchsticks.  It was created my a prison inmate, who definitely had more than enough time to work on it!

 

The last two museums I visited were the Natural History Museum and the Model Railroad Museum.  The Natural History Museum had some nice fossils and dinosaur bones, and an exhibit on animal skulls.  The Model Railroad Museum catered to my longtime interest in dioramas and scale model making.  It just amazes me when such tiny creations can look so realistic!  

Tomorrow, I hit the road once again, taking the slow route back north.  It will be the start of a little National Park run.  I'm ready for a little hiking and relaxation.