I have never been a plaque reader and I never will be. A plaque reader is the type of person who walks into a museum., gallery, or any kind of exhibit and likes to learn every bit of information they can by reading the plaques in front of everything possible. I just cannot do it. This makes is a little bit more difficult for me to spend long periods of time in museums. On this adventure, I had two very different "museum experiences". The first, was at the Swan House, a colossal house, a few steps away from the history museum. As I walked up to the house, I realized that they museum had hired actors to play the parts of the man who owned the house, the butler and so on. Walking up to the front door the "butler" held the door open for me to walk inside of the house. A lady working for the museum, was just inside the house, and handed me a packet of information about the Swan House and guided me to the man playing the owner of the house, Edward Inman. "Mr. Inman" explained to me that he was the heir to a colossal cotton brokerage fortune collected shortly after the Civil War. Mr. Inman was a businessman and also invested and earned a lot of money in real estate. In 1924 Mr. Inman, and his wife, Emily Inman, hired the architect Philip Trammel Shutze, of Georgia Tech, to build the Swan House. Mr. Inman only lived in the house for three years, from 1928-1931, before he died of sudden heart attack. His wife, Emily, lived in the house until she died in 1965. The house was purchased a year later by the Atlanta Historical Center and the house was open to the public in 1967. Most of the furniture and belongings left in the house belonged to the Inman family. I thanked "Mr. Inman" for telling me his story and he told me I could wander around the house and look around, which I did. (My pictures of it are on the right) It gave me a good idea of how far Atlanta has come since the Civil War, in terms of racial equality, change in jobs, architecture, even kitchen appliances. After I left the house, I walked over to the museum in the pouring rain. I walked into a back entrance and found my way to the exhibits, which was a little difficult, because the museum was under construction, and I did not see any employees. Honestly, I did not get much out of the museum itself, mostly because I just do not have the patience to read plaques, but also because the exhibits did not seem to match up with what I wanted to learn for my project. I walked through the Bobby Jones exhibit, the Civil War exhibit, the Latinos in U.S. Popular Music exhibit, a folk art exhibit, and an exhibit on the 1996 Olympics. I walked around for an hour or so, taking some pictures, but I was not finding what I wanted to learn about. This made me think about what I did want to learn. I realized a few things, I learn better in an experiential, hands on environment, and I did not want to read about places, I wanted to see them. This led me to talk through different ideas with Emory faculty, and students, until one professor gave me the idea to go on a road trip. Click here to read all about my next adventure!