Here are 7 unique museums to visit:
Mothman Museum
The legend of Mothman lives on at the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, W.Va.
Sightings of a winged creature with glowing red eyes occurred in 1966 and 1967 in the small town. Today the museum keeps archives of press clippings, police reports, and handwritten eyewitness accounts of those events.
Props used in the 2002 movie, “The Mothman Prophecies,” are also part of the collection, as well as a life-sized replica of the creature.
This year the annual Mothman Festival, which draws thousands of people, will be held Sept. 16 and 17.
The National Mustard Museum
You have to love a museum whose founder signs his correspondence, “condimentally yours.”
The National Mustard Museum, located in Middleton, Wisc., has the world's largest collection of mustards and mustard memorabilia.
Barry Levenson, the founder and the former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Wisconsin, opened the museum in 1992. According to the museum’s website, the collection has more than 5,676 mustards from all 50 states and more than 70 countries.
If you can’t make the trip to Wisconsin make sure to visit the website where the humor is spread on thick.
The American Sign Museum
Closer to home, in Cincinnati, is the American Sign Museum.
The sign museum is “dedicated to the art and history of signs and sign making,” according to its website, and covers 100 years of sign history.
Visitors to the vintage collection, housed in 20,000 square feet, are greeted at the entrance by an El Rancho Motel sign paired with a hardware store sign in the shape of a giant hammer.
Inside America’s largest public sign museum, illuminated in vivid neon, are signs for Sunoco, Burger King and Howard Johnson’s.
The Super Museum
The Super Museum, located in Metropolis, Ill., is dedicated to the "Man of Steel."
Collector Jim Hambrick, who attributes his passion for Superman to a lunch box he used as a 5-year-old, has amassed more than 20,000 items inside brick buildings on Superman Square.
Inside, according to the website, is almost every Superman toy ever produced, movie props, and one of the only Superman costumes worn by actor George Reeves in existence.
On display are crayons, games, record players, water bottles, pencils, snow globes, suspenders and more — if it’s got Superman on it, its part of the collection.
A Christmas Story House and Museum
A Christmas Story House and Museum in Cleveland is the film location for the iconic 1983 holiday movie.
The museum, located across from the house, has props, costumes and memorabilia from the film, according to the official website. Some of the recognizable features are the snow suit worn by Randy, the family car and the chalkboard used in Miss Shield’s classroom.
Want to spend the night in the house where Ralphie dreamed of his own Red Ryder BB Gun?
A Christmas Story House is available to sleep in year round. Guests can use a private third floor loft and an hour after closing can use the entire home.
The Mütter Museum
The goal of The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia is to help visitors "understand the mysteries and beauty of the human body and appreciate the history of diagnosis and treatment of disease."
Exhibits are dedicated to Viennese anatomist Joseph Hyrtl’s collection of 139 human skulls, pieces of Albert Einstein’s brain and the thousands of objects removed from human airways by Dr. Chevalier Jackson.
The museum has more than 5,500 types of medical instruments, 450 anatomical models and 1,300 west specimens – objects contained in fluid – form every part of the human body.
The Vent Haven Museum
The Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Ky. is dedicated to the art of ventriloquism.
It was founded by William Shakespeare Berger, a native of Cincinnati, who started his collection in 1910 with a “Tommy Baloney” figure.
The museum, which bills itself as the “only museum in the world dedicated to the art of ventriloquism,” houses more than 800 figures and thousands of photos, playbills and letters.
Last month, the museum hosted the annual international Vent Haven ConVENTion. The event drew 500 attendees.
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