• HOME
  • THE FAMILY TRAVELER’S HANDBOOK
  • ABOUT
  • WORK WITH MARA

Family Travel Blog | Family Vacation Inspiration |The Mother of all Trips

Bringing the world to your kids - and your kids to the world

  • destinations
  • travel tips
  • travel dreams
  • road food
  • ski vacations

What you can learn in a Milwaukee museum

By Mara

Tommy loved lying on a bed of nails at Discovery World in Milwaukee so much that I'm thinking I need to get him new bedroom furniture

We learned so many things on our recent free visit to Discovery World. This is a Milwaukee museum that is to museums what TED talks are to discourse – a place where big ideas about technology, education, design, science, art, music, and nature meet and are well explained by people smarter than you. It’s difficult to categorize Discovery World as any one type of museum because the exhibits are so diverse. To wit:

We saw fascinating automatons and tested  simple machines to see how they worked.

We learned about nuclear power.

We explored Les Paul’s collection of guitars, read the story of his life, and made music using a variety of household objects including old children’s toys.

We played in an aquarium touch tank.

We experienced a virtual reality show that let us put our hands into the sun.

We saw how big the  subterranean tunnel that protects Milwaukee from flooding is.

But one of Tommy’s favorite exhibits, the one he kept returning to, was the bed of nails. As in those pointy sharp things you normally avoid coming into contact with any part of your child. I think he lay down on them three times and probably would have kept doing it if we hadn’t distracted him with lunch. His brother wanted no part of these shenanigans, but I thought I’d give it a whirl after Tommy assured me it didn’t hurt at all.

He lied. My back, arms, and the back of my legs were sore for an hour. But I guess that’s why the word discovery is in the name.

This post is the third of my Postcards from the Road series for Summer 2013 – quick photo posts that give you a glimpse of our travels while we’re still on them. You can bet I’ll be writing a detailed post, with plenty of tips for visiting, at a later date.

Many many thanks to Discovery World and Visit Milwaukee for providing us free tickets to see this unique Milwaukee museum. My opinions about beds of nails (and everything else you’ll find here) are my own.

Filed Under: Postcards from the road, We've been here, Wisconsin

Previous Post Next Post

Comments

  1. Shelby says

    June 27, 2013 at 10:13 pm

    I love that bed of nails! When I lived in Thailand, my kids and I loved one similar that was a part of a public art installation in Bangkok. I just recently found your site and am happy to add it to my reading list!

  2. Jenny says

    July 1, 2013 at 4:12 am

    Awww, Ive always wanted to do a bed of nails. It looks pretty cool 🙂

I'm a family travel expert & award-winning writer who loves to eat. Explore this site and you'll find lots of stories about my adventures, and family travel tips. More about Mara

The Family Traveler's Handbook: Inspiring Families to See the World

Buy the book that is
"packed with enough tips and vacation ideas that even a veteran traveler can learn how to plan, pack, or book their next trip smarter." Jen Leo, LA Times Travel Web Buzz columnist

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Instagram Slider

No feed

As seen in

As seen in

Award-winning travel writing

>

© 2008–2023 Mara Gorman/Mother of all Trips | All Rights Reserved | Terms of Service & Privacy Policy

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
14
5
SHARES