Center for Wooden Boats & Museum of History and Industry

"First Thursday" is one of my FAVORITE times of the month. First Thursday basically translates to Free admission for select museums around Seattle. AWESOME, especially for a broke college student who love museums. For August, I headed down to South Lake Union to check out the Museum of History and Industry.

Seattle has had an abnormally warm summer which is good and bad...but I decided to take advantage of it and strolled on down instead of taking the bus.

How Seattle...sea planes waiting at the docks.

And by this point I was sweating and regretting this decision. Of course I had decided to go on one of the hottest days of the week. I guess I can't complain though, it was a really beautiful walk.

Now the MOHAI is nestled right on the south end of Lake Union. You've got the water right in front, the Space Needle to the left, the city right behind you, obviously a prime location.

Right next door to MOHAI is the Center for Wooden Boats which offers sailing classes, history, renting boats, etc. I was so EXCITED. My friend Nelle had posted some adorable pictures on social media of the place, so I knew I had to take time to explore.

If you are EVER in Seattle, I highly encourage you to check this place out. It's a fun place to walk around and just see. Seattle has always been a "boat" city if you will and to see handcrafted masterpieces is incredible.

Hey! There's the Space Needle.

After the CWB, I went over to the MOHAI and struggled to find the entrance. I might have been distracted by the massive boats docked right outside.

The boats could be rented out for special events or wandered about when not in use!

Okay, now it was time to check out the museum!

This little light bulb was just sat outside the museum advertising the latest exhibit. It was really funny to me because it seemed so out of place and random.

It was MOHAI time! Side note: this building looks like it should be in Washington D.C.

When you immediately enter, you're greeted by all things local and Seattle.

The famous, original pink "Toe" Truck is immortalized here in all it's punny glory.

Now I caught sight of this large cross section of a tree out of the corner of my eye and scuttled over. Last year when I was in London, I went to the Natural History Museum which had a massive cross section of a tree with dates on the rings like this one in Seattle! This tree is 800 years old. Crazy.

Remember the light bulb from outside? It was for this exhibit Innovate featuring many Seattle born companies and ideas.

This was such a cool piece. There was everything from a little start-up called Microsoft, to Pocock Racing Shells (made famous by UW rowing), and even a local coffee business named Starbucks. I realized that Seattle is an epicenter for ideas and the next big "thing". There are all of these ideas swirling around and people here making them happen. I'm just lucky that I'm able to witness such innovation and hopefully one day partake in it!

Feeling inspired, I headed up stairs for more history!

The second floor takes you back to Seattle's roots, starting from settlement and all the way to modern sports with EVERYTHING in between.

On the third floor, there is a special room dedicated to sailing and shipping since it has been a vital part to Seattle's history and industry (I see what they did there). I kind of got distracted by the room itself and the views outside.

After my wander around the museum, I had one last stroll through the docks and then finally made my way to bus stop.

Fabulous day doing what I love: exploring and learning!