August 20, 2009

• Guess Where??

  This is a really great place that we visited recently when we were visiting Santa Rosa.  I would rec. it to anyone.  It is very cool.  ESP. if you are familiar with these characters, which, unless you've been living under a rock since the 50's, I'm sure you are.

  The only advice I would give is not to take a toddler/very young child if you really want to go through it and take in all of the exhibits.  As Austin cannot read yet or understand comics, he was over it in about 15 minutes.  He just wanted to stay out in the courtyard the whole time.  It was still a great time, though. 

  He did come away, however, with a new love of Snoopy, some souvenir pennies that he LOVED making, and a little Snoopy doll which was surprisingly affordable.  Very affordable, I thought!  Much more than the $30 t-shirt that  I really wanted to get him, but just couldn't do it.  I found a tee for me for $14 but all the kids shirts and baby things were $30?  Come on!  Someone's taking advantage!!  It was so cute, too.  It was dark brown, long sleeves, and it had a pic. of Pigpen on it, along with the phrase "Dirt Don't Hurt!"  It still makes me mad that they wanted $30 for a tiny 3T t-shirt!  Anyway, we went with Warren & Dolores and it was lots of fun!

  The making of the pennies..

  

  which was great timing, b/c Austin has really been into "coins" lately.  He loves to dump out his piggy bank and play with the coins and put them back in.  I don't know where he got the word "coins" from. ?  I usually say change or something.  They really do hear EVERYTHING and pick up everything.. bionic ears.  He's now learning what the diff. ones are called.  So far he knows penny and quarter, but he still just calls them all coins.

  

  

  ..drawing a crowd.. kids love coins.

  

   THE CHARLES M. SCHULZ MUSEUM AND RESEARCH CENTER  -- he lived in Santa Rosa so there are these statues not only at the museum but scattered around town as well.  Fun!

  

  

  The entrance:

  

  

  The big two-story mural..

  

  

  Getting closer to it..

  

  Can you tell yet what the mural is made of?  Yep! Tiles of his comic strips.  This was very cool and one of my favorite things.

  

  What a great idea, huh?

  Some random pics of the inside..

  painted murals..

  

  

  

  Wood relief of Snoopies..

  

  Play area where you could make your own comic strip with these magnetic pieces.. I kinda wanted to try it, but Austin wasn't really into it.  Kept taking the magnets off.  Not old enough yet.

  

  

  Checking out some action figures..

  

  The rest of the exhibit rooms were "no photog." areas..   So you'll just have to go and visit the museum to see more of it!  They rotate exhibits, too so they change every few months. It was really interesting.

  The courtyard..

  The purple baseball hat shaped shade structure..

   

  

  Underneath it, in this bowl of water, you can see five diff. holograms of Snoopy and Woodstock.  Very cool!  You can barely see some of it in the next photo.. it's the red blurry figures in the right side of the water to the right of the other person's reflection.

  

  Statue under the kite eating tree..

  

  another statue..

  

  Ah, Snoopy! 

  

  Nana & Papa outside with us while Chris was looking at the exhibits. 

  

  There was a lot of things that you couldn't take pics of..  like his office/studio that his wife donated when he passed away.  It is exactly how he had it in his home all of those years.

  And my other favorite thing was a mural that he had painted on the nursery wall of his first daughter in like 1951 I think.  Someone had bought the house, knowing that it might be under there somewhere, and used liquid something or other and cotton balls to painstakingly remove 4, yes FOUR layers of latex paint.  Luckily he had painted it in oils so it held up pretty good.  When the people who owned this house heard about the museum, they had the wall cut out of their house and donated.  It was a NO PHOTOGRAPHY thing so I couldn't get a pic, but it was so cute!  There was a little boy, little girl, little black and white dog, and other cartoony things just scattered over the wall, books, a train, etc.  But you could totally see the resemblance of the boy, girl, and dog to Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Peppermint Patty!   It was like the beginnings of them.  Not them, but you could see them coming. So cool!

  Well, that's all the pics I have of that afternoon trip!  If you're ever in the area, it's a really cool place to go.

   THE END.

  • 9:47 pm
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