American Sign Museum

Friday
Jen and Jason left us after breakfast to begin their drive back home to Atlanta. Laura and Liam were meeting up with one of Laura’s friends and her two children for lunch, and then going to visit the Christmas display at Krohn Conservatory. In the evening they were meeting up for dinner with a couple of other friends. This left them about 3 hours free in the afternoon, which they planned on staying downtown for, but were happy for us to join them. Philip was going to be doing some work on his laptop during the day, so we arranged to meet Laura and Liam at the American Sign Museum at 3pm. I had visited this a number of years ago with Jen, when Roger was still working, and have kept meaning to take him, but never got round to it. In the meantime they have expanded and built some more event space. The museum seeks to preserve and protect American history and pay homage to the artistry and craftsmanship of days gone by. It’s a fascinating look at roadside American over the last 100 years. We then had some time to pass before heading to the Museum Center to watch an Omnimax film, so we went to a Graeters store in Clifton for some ice cream. The film was Rocky Mountain Express, which takes the audience on a steam journey along the historic Canadian Pacific railway from Vancouver to Montreal, focusing on the western mountain portion. At the same time it also informs you about the construction of the first transcontinental railway to link the new Dominion of Canada from sea to sea, and the tremendous difficulties they faced in this largely undeveloped wilderness. Many construction workers lost their lives, the majority being workers from other countries, notably China and Japan. The scenery and photography was amazing, and the history informative and quite sobering at times. At this point, we went our separate ways, with us returning home, and picking Philip up to go out for dinner at Phoenician Taverna