After being laid up for two days with a migraine I was just about crawling out of my skin this morning, desperate to go somewhere, anywhere. I’m still in central Maine with my mother and she’s still none too keen on going for a hike in 85 degree weather soooo I offered to bring her to a museum, which I figured had to be climate controlled. Usually I drive but since we were so close anyway, and she does need practice driving, I climbed into the passenger seat and off we went.
It was an uneventful drive until we were almost there. Then the GPS insisted we had to go down Rangeley Road to get there. Only problem was the road was closed due to construction. So I took the GPS down, zoomed out, and found an alternate route through the college campus. It was, after all, a museum on the college campus. And wow. I don’t want to sound critical but all I ever knew of Central Maine was poverty and a lack of education, so to stumble upon such a crazy expansive campus here, nestled in such a well kept little town…. well I was shocked. This was not the Maine I grew up with. I must have fallen through the Twilight Zone again.
I spent some time circling the damn building because I didn’t know what I was looking for (The Collin’s Center for the Arts) but after that it was all pretty easy. The museum is free but does have a nice donation box I fed a dollar to. No one seemed to care I was ambling in on my own – granted I probably look like a college student with the orange hair and a baby face. Truth be told college campuses make me a bit uneasy since I never attended one. I always feel like a bit of a fraud but no matter!
The museum has a range of art and utilitarian items from the native peoples of both North and South America, everyone from the Inuits of Canada all the way down to the Mayan and Aztec Empires. It was actually quite impressive! Funerary dolls, textiles, baskets, and a series of interactive displays for children that my mother kept herself entertained with (as she forgot her reading glasses at home and couldn’t read any of the plaques anyway.) They even had a bunch of South American dress up clothing and a wee wigwam. OK, even I went inside that one… Because when else do you get to play a wigwam? All and all it was a lovely little trip and was happily surprised. If you’re in the area and into museums its well worth a look!
