This is not your average museum. There's no big fancy building with a marble entryway and dressed-up docents. There *is* a big old steam train to ride on (you can even climb up a little ladder and see what's what).
My husband went here as a kid and was dying to share it with our little rascals. You buy your tickets then hop on the train (it leaves maybe five times a day) for a short ride (15 minutes?) to an old logging camp. There are a couple of buildings with old equipment and pictures (and a buffalo hide rug that grossed my kids right out), which are good to browse through for a little while.
Then you can pay extra for a pontoon boat ride (they take you on this very muddy river, tell you about the logging camp history, and hope for some wildlife) or take the included-with-train-ticket wilderness tour. We didn't take the wilderness tour because the kids were having too much fun in the petting zoo. There were goats, chickens, ducks, a little cow, and turtles to look at in their enclosure. They had adoptable kittens, too, but we resisted their fuzzy adorableness.
There is a concession stand on the grounds (crazily expensive, as they all are) and the old camp slaughterhouse, which was eerie. There is a little nature trail with signs, but the bugs made sure we didn't get much out of that.
There is a store they call the Cracker Barrel store, but it had zero in common with Cracker Barrel restaurants. It was full of souvenirs and candy (fudge and gummy), and that's where you buy the pontoon boat tickets. Next to this building is the Nature Center, which is a taxidermist's dream come true. Lots of dead stuff in there (again, the kids found it gross) but also some cool minerals and ammonites (I loved them!).
We were there for about 2.5 hours and were ready to go by then, but it was a fun little place. It's staffed mostly by high schoolers, with train enthusiasts running the steam engine. We hopped back on the train for the return to the depot, where the kids got to line up and blow the horn. That was COOL. The guy in charge enjoyed it more than the kids, I think. read more