Sparky's Place

Good grief, I am exhausted! Today was a special day for our family...my baby turned 13! I now officially have three teens. Today was also the day our homeschool group scheduled a visit to the Charles M. Schultz museum. I do not make it to many field trips anymore -- staying on top of our school work while juggling all of our activities leaves little time for learning enrichment act ivies known as field trips. But this sounded like a perfect opportunity to do something we had never done before, with the added draw of getting to see all the Snoopy statues together on the field adjoining the museum. They are there awaiting a big auction this coming Saturday.

I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed the museum. In most of the exhibit rooms you are not allowed to take pictures, but this incredible mural on the bottom floor was one of the exceptions. It was designed by a Japanese artist and is constructed from thousands of four panel Peanuts comic strips printed onto small tiles. The artist spent two years selecting the strips for the mural having to search especially diligently for ones which would have just the right amount of black in them to create Lucy and Charlie Brown.
Once he selected the strips, he laid them out on a gym floor in Japan and numbered each one, then sent them to America to be assembled according to his instructions. I was going to look up the technical details for you but I'm too tired -- I'm sure you can get them online. I bet Kludge can even find some video documenting the whole thing! So go for it. I just want to tell you it is very impressive in person and a lot of fun to look at close up as well!

We had two very sweet docents--a couple who have been married "forever", raised 8 children, and are obviously very taken with the life and artwork of Sparky. (No one calls him Charles Schultz there). The girls and I gave the museum 2 thumbs up!


After the museum tour, we wandered outside and took pictures of the kite eating tree. Very cute--unless you're a kite! Next it was onto the snoopys--I had downloaded my memory stick that very morning so I was equipped to take all the pictures my heart desired. Seeing the many statues together in one place was pretty cool. The girls posed with a couple of them. The final picture shows one of Michelle's favorites. When you're a collector and lover of cows, what could be better than bovine Joe Cool?

If you are a Sonoma County resident that has not visited the museum yet, go ahead and treat yourself to something others are traveling out-of-state as well as out-of-country, to visit. We found it very worthwhile.

I wish I could think of something clever to add to this and make it worth reading, but good grief, it's hard to be clever when you're exhausted!