Day 9.216: Strawbery Banke Museum

Late last night we looked at the weather forecast for today - it looked pretty bad - then we realised that was for home and our planned day out was in Portsmouth, NH - that was even worse. So as we went to bed we had given up on our plan and were trying to come up with another option.

After my run this morning I said, "It's not bad out there at the moment - we should probably check the forecast again." I'm glad I did, because the forecast was by then just mixed and in reality it turned into the perfect day for our trip - mostly sunny and not too hot.

Our destination was the wonderfully named Strawbery Banke Museum - Strawbery Banke was the name the first British settlers gave to the town that would eventually grow up to become Portsmouth New Hampshire. The museum is a whole neighborhood of buildings rescued and restored to tell the history of the area. Each home that is open for visiting has a flag hanging outside. Exile #3 noticed that they were each a U.S. flag from a different era - and indeed they matched the time period that the home had been restored to and staged in. The history stretched from the 1950's (see below - bottom left - with the ashtrays) back to 1777 - where the flag outside the tavern had the stripes for the thirteen colonies, but a union flag rather than anything star-spangled in the corner - and then, even further, to the turn of the 18th century - where we posed with the flag outside the oldest building on the site (see below).

The museum had a bit of everything - historical architecture, furniture and artifacts of course, but also examples of the detective work that goes into restoring the buildings, role-playing actors, demonstrations, hands-on exhibits and a cafe with very nice made-to-order sandwiches. We all had a great time.