Peoria- Exhibits & Planetarium – Museum

What another day full of exciting things to see. Bryce and I went to the Peoria Riverfront Museum & Planetarium. Well, between the Peoria History, Illinois River Encounter and the Peoria Holocaust Memorial this was worth the visit. I almost forgot the Planetarium was great too. But Bryce did take a nap during the star show. LOL.. I did too for a split second. Laughing out loud Peoria water front is great. Peoria is in the development stage of rebuilding the water front restaurant. That is cool, because last time we came by (2015), it was open. We were told that we would probably see a difference starting next year. I am just glad that all of the sites to see are within close walking distance to the water front. With having a broken toe it is still hard to walk but I do it. We will be leaving here tomorrow around noon to head to our next spot.

We heard grumblings from some other cruisers about the extremely low water level on the rivers. However, we have not noticed any water level problems so far. The channels are all at least 10 feet deep as required and managed by the dams. We have noticed less water going over the dams. However, all our anchorages and stops are the same levels as last time we came through in 2015. The marinas like always are a bit skimpy, but they don’t cater to Sailboats. So I don’t see the water level problems others talk about. I think perhaps they are looking at flood stage marks on bridges and seawalls.

The first thing we did today is stop in and have lunch at the Blue Duck. They have Bar-b-Q sauce for everything. We split 1/2 rack of ribs. They were delicious. A number of restaurants are close by.

After lunch we walked over to the Peoria Riverfront Museum & Planetarium and this is where all the fun began.

The history is mind blowing. This is really neat; there are a number of glass cases here filled with “buttons”. Each button represents a life lost in the Holocaust. There are 6 million buttons that represent the 6 million lives lost in the Holocaust.

And more cases filled with buttons.

The first part of the gallery is a sport hands on exhibit. Bryce was checking his jumping ability, He jumped 12 inches. Must be getting old!! LOL

I didn’t make any baskets..But I had fun. The board rotated while you shoot the ball at the basket.

Smarty pants made 4 shots!

This is a photo of the entrance of the Peoria Illinois waterway gallery.

Did you know the difference in the Buoys other than color? When we are looking through the binoculars (also at night) we always look for the shape of the buoys too. Nuns and cans.. Shape is useful at night when you can’t see the colors.

Below shows a photo of the Asian Carp.The following was written on the photo. I just rewrote so you could read it. Some fisherman have found for the silver and bighead Asian Carp. However, in an effort to prevent these invasive species from destabilizing the $7 million fishing industry of the Great Lakes system, Army Corps of Engineers installed an Electrical barrier system in the Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal and neighboring waterways.

I found this fish aquarium with some local fish in it.

This shows the relative heights of the different parts of the Illinois River.

This was the second lock we went through at Lockport.

This photo shows only one side of the awesome History of Peoria room. This was a great history learning experiment.

LOL.. We built Derby cars and raced them. Bryce won because his car was heavier.

But after the race I put on a puppet show for him….

This was an interesting engine. It is one of the first Caterpillar Diesel Engines. If you look close, you see a two cylinder gas engine mounted on the side used to start the Diesel. The gas engine is started with a crank!!