Off the Beaten Path in Santa Anna

It is fun to discover interesting, less well known treasures. Though today we went off the beaten path to less well known museums, I would hardly call them hidden treasures, especially the second one. We started off with the Orange County Heritage Museum which has the Kellogg House, a historic house with hands-on activities for the kids, pretty gardens and a nature trail. We had our own private tour of the house (there were no other visitors at the moment) which was fun. The house, which was built in 1898, had several period rooms with things that the kids could touch. They played with a telephone, listened to an old record player, and saw some kitchen utensils from the turn of the century. The second floor contained a toy room with many toys that the kids could play with (though Benjamin was disappointed that a train that was off limits), a dress-up room and a school room. Although this museum was fun, it was small, and the Rose Hill Manor Museum that we saw in Maryland was better. I had hoped that we could enjoy a nice, but short, hike in the park, but the nature trail seemed extremely lame.

Later at home, I read in more detail the self-guided tour brochure for the Kellogg House. Besides useful information about the house itself, it mentions that the nature trails are not maintained, so we probably just didn't properly explore it.

The other museum I wanted to visit in Santa Anna was the Bowers Kidseum. They have free admission the first Sunday of the month, but we missed it, and it was likely to be extremely crowded. I was surprised by the small size of the Kidseum. It was just a big room with several low tables, a puppet theater and a dress up area. Masks and instruments each covered several tables. In addition, one small table contained a collection of toys. The dress up area had a mirror, stage and large collection of clothing, hats and shoes. The museum also had two side rooms--one with an exhibit about languages and another in which kids could make things out of clay. The kids loved the puppet theater and the clay projects, and they enjoyed playing with the other artifacts. Although the kids had fun, I thought that the price ($30 for our family of 5) is too much for what the museum offered.