With so many travel venues going away, it was only a matter of time before a news dispensing organization moved to fill the vacated gap. It appears that USA Today might earn this honor. Over the weekend, our local news source, The Columbian that I used to work for, had an article called “Olympic museum wins top honor”. It reported the results of a study by a panel from USA Today and an editors’ group to name the best new attraction in 2020. This article was written by Rich Laden who works for something called The Gazette.
The top winner of Best New Attraction is the new Olympic and Paralympic Museum in downtown Colorado Springs that opened last summer. It was one of 20 nominees for best new attraction and honors both athletes and the Olympic Ideal. I was glad to see that Olympic athletes were consulted on this project. Because our son and his family moved to Denver recently, Ruth and I have a better than even chance of seeing and reporting on this new venue with 12 interactive galleries soon. The US has needed such an attraction for a long time. Something like this already exists in Barcelona. It covers Europe especially well. Ruth & I have already also seen a museum in Melbourne, AU devoted to sports-crazy Australian athleticism. Both attractions are excellent.
The article I accessed lists the top ten best new attraction winners. #3 is something called The Forge in Lemont, Illinois. Because we had a family connection who lived there, Ruth and I are familiar with this community southwest of Chicago. We regularly visited Betty and her family when we were on our way to Chicago, and we were blown away by the fact that Betty and kin never ventured into a city that we considered our 2nd home. I had an instantaneous interest in #3. The Forge is an unparalleled Aerial Ropes Course. Users get to climb and zipline, bike and kayak. The video on its website, which I highly recommend watching, makes it look kind of ultimate and advertises The Forge as “Not Your Average Adventure”.
But in truth I must admit that I will probably see #6 before I see #3. The venue in 6th place among the top 10 winners is the Planet Word Museum that opened on October, 22, 2020, at 925 13th Street in Washington, DC. Appropriately named and backed by celebrities, Planet Word is a language arts museum “where language comes to life.” It’s dedicated to explaining how children learn words, how music uses words, and the like. It promises “an immersive language experience” for all ages. Being a language lover, I look forward to seeing this museum’s speaking willow tree. A non-profit venture, this new attraction operates on suggested donations in a school once called Franklin. Advertised as the world’s first voice-activated museum, Planet Word is in one of the 1st public schools in this city. I really look forward to visiting it.
Hank
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