This past Friday was my last summer Friday off (☹️) and Josh and I wanted to do something fun. We decided on the Springfield Museums and dinner/beers at Great Awakening Brewing.

Josh has been to the museums before and wanted to take me, and I’ve never been so I said sure! We went after lunch and got there after 1:00 p.m. There are five museums and they’re all located really close to each other:

• Science Museum
• Museum of Springfield History
• George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum
• D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts
• The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum and Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden

We went to them in that order over the course of the afternoon. First stop, the Science Museum, which had a dinosaur hall, African hall, mammal hall, Native American hall, and habitat hall on the first floor; on the second was an Earth and astronomy hall (this area felt very elementary school science-y to us). The T-Rex was incredibly large and I was scared to walk into the room. Josh went first and was like, “It’s okay, it doesn’t move.” There were live animals, like fish and turtles, on the lower level.

Next stop was the Springfield History Museum, which I thought was really cool. Exhibits included vintage cars, things made in the Springfield-area, downtown retail, Smith & Wesson gallery, the Civil War, and the Indian motorcycle collection. Although I don’t live in the city, I’m pretty familiar with the area and the things that have been made in western MA over the years.

The next two stops were the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum and the D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts. Both of these were your typical art museums but were cool to walk through; we only visited the first floor of the D’Amour Museum because we had a standing appointment at our last stop: The Dr. Seuss Museum.

In the middle of the courtyard between the buildings is the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden.

This was 100% made for children, but we still had fun walking around the two floors. (We played a rhyming game, which we successfully completed.) The first floor was a kid-friendly version of Seuss’s childhood, while the second floor was more stagings of his home studies/offices and some personal letters and drawings. You definitely felt like you were in the middle of a Dr. Seuss book, and the artwork on the walls was absolutely perfect and on-point with all of his books.

I really enjoyed going to all of the museums, and I like that they’re all within walking distance and not too big that you feel like you need to spend all day there. We were able to visit all of them (minus the second floor in one of them) in about 3-4 hours.

We then headed to Great Awakening Brewing for dinner and beers. I had been there in the fall with some co-workers, but it was Josh’s first time there. We both got flights: I got Mellionaire, Rubus Cube, Sicle, and Hana; Josh got East Mode, Space Lettuce, Sicle, and Fuzz. We split pretzel sticks and a Margherita pizza. Everything was really good, and Josh said he’d definitely go back.

Our final stop of the night was the local casino for a free music Friday. Josh’s friend invited us and we met up with him, his sister, and her friend. The band was an 80s rock cover band, and they were actually really good. It was a good way to end the night, and I was home by 10:00 p.m.