Saturday, April 18, 2009

Mashantucket Pequot Museum


We live about twenty minutes from the casinos in our state-one is owned by the Mohegans (called Mohegan Sun) and the other, the first, is owned by the Mashantucket Pequot. The Pequots have a fabulous Museum and Research Center that I went to a couple of years ago with a friend and wanted to wait for Tucker to be a little older to appreciate it. We won tickets at the Family social and decided to use them today!

They don't allow cameras inside so I could only take pictures outside. It is amazing to see the exhibits and they are so realistic-looking that you honestly feel that if you looked at them long enough, they would move! The journey starts in the World of Ice which you travel to on an escalator; as you descend, it gets colder! Tucker thought this was very cool (no pun intended!) The exhibits you go through show what the area was like 11,000 years ago, including how the Indians took part in a caribou hunt.

One of my favorite areas is the Pequot village where you can see how they actually lived their lives day-to-day.

Once you leave the Village, you head to an area where you can see what it is like to live on the reservation, from when they first lived on the land (and fought against the English) to the present. There's even an outdoor area where you can go to see how they would have had everything. These two pictures are from there:


They also have a really nice observation tower that you can go up in. At first, Tucker didn't want to go up but after we left, he said that was his favorite part!
(and yes, it is as high as it looks!)

We ended our day out with ice cream from Dairy Queen on the way home! It was a good day! We liked the museum so much we're considering getting a membership. It's pretty reasonable and they have a lot of great programs and activities for kids that are only available to members!

2 comments:

Mari said...

Looks like a fun day! Did you have to climb stairs to get to the top of that tower?

Cindy said...

Thankfully, no! There was an elevator!