Last week my SO and I headed to Santa Rosa where the famed Charles M. Schulz museum was located. Now, he was always a popular name in Minnesota because he was born there. One summer, a variety of Lucy statues were created and placed all over the Twin Cities for people to go find. In the museum, there was even a book of all the Lucy’s statues on one of the tables. Needless to say, visiting this museum meant a lot to me.
So thought I’d share some pictures from the day and talk about the museum about. I don’t want to give too much away since it’s completely worth a trip. Upon entering the museum there are a variety of Peanuts Statues as you walk up to the museum.
Once you’re inside the museum, you are greeted by this giant picture. Upon closer inspection you realize the picture is completely made from Peanuts comic strips. The darker spots are all comics that took place during the night.
We were then told to go into a viewing area where we watched a 9 minute video about Charles M. Schulz, how the museum came to be, and why they chose the location that they did. He frequented this area, which was a park, quite a bit, so it was the perfect spot for this museum. I also found out his nickname “Sparky,” which was given to him as a baby and stayed with him his entire life.
On the first floor you walk around a variety of exhibits where you can read comics of our beloved Peanuts characters along with the history of Peanuts in Animation. Sit down in a few of the chairs throughout the room and look through scrapbooks that include interviews and newspaper articles about Charles M. Schulz, etc
On the second level you explore how the school environment played such an important role in his Peanuts Comics, and also explore the time line of his life and history along with the makeup of what his office looked like.
And for those of you with little ones you will definitely want to stop into this fun space where your littles are invited to make crafts, color, and more. We had to partake ourselves too:
But, be sure to take some time to go out into the courtyard where you will find a few favorite statues including this:
Answer the questions for the crossword above or look up in the tree above you to see this memorable Peanuts moment:
There is also a theater where you can watch videos about Charles M. Schulz life or like us, where we watched “The Great Big Pumpkin Charlie Brown.”
Right next store to the museum is also the Snoopy Home Ice Skating Rink. There’s a variety of open skating times where you can go in and ice skate yourselves. They use to host amazing ice shows until about 2003 where famous ice skating shows would come perform. A lot of the signatures and hand prints can be found outside the ice rink.
And right inside the ice skating rink is The Warm Puppy Cafe where you can stop in for coffee, tea, soda, and a quick bite to eat. You can even order Charles M. Schulz favorite: An English Muffin with grape jelly. Sit in front of the fireplace to warm up after ice skating, or start your day this way.
And, if you wanted to take home a little bit of Peanuts with you, you could always stop in to the giant gift stop to find the perfect item or gift.
I had a fun day visiting the museum and hope to be back in the future. Have you been before?
