After Wonderworks, we really didn’t think that there was much that we could do to match the activities of the prior day (in actuality, we didn’t really think about it). Especially since we were finally on our way home. But relatively early on a Sunday morning, we just happened to be passing by something that you just don’t see every day – The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum.
Now I realize that this isn’t for everyone. In fact, it probably isn’t for much of anyone. But we’re just those kind of people that like to see things that you can’t see just anywhere. And in fact we like to see things that not everyone else sees. How many other people have been to Wonderworks? Or Dollywood? I have no idea. But I am sure it’s a lot. How many have been to the Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers? No idea. But we have.
Heck, it’s even been featured on Unwrapped (on the Shake It Up episode, if you’re curious). Well, we’ve been there.
What I’m not sure about is just how many shakers are in the museum. I can say that there are a lot. One brochure said fourteen thousand. The web site says seventeen thousand and at the desk they tell you a whopping twenty thousand. However you add them up, that’s a lot of salt and pepper shakers.
If you’d like some idea of what that looks like, take a look at this picture. This is just one section, and there are perhaps 15 of these sections in the “regular” part of the museum. The shakers are grouped by subject, so you can see shakers for a particular subject, or color, and it’s a bit goofy, but it’s really pretty cool. The best part is that it’s free. Well, it doesn’t cost anything to get in. They do ask for donations, and they have a shop if you’d like to start your own collection.
Towards the end, they have a “vault”, which is about six of these sections, and holds the more valuable shakers. According to the operators, just one of these shakers (or pair of shakers, I assume) is worth three thousand dollars! Now I don’t know who would pay that much for a shaker (or pair of shakers), but I have to believe that they would know. I also think that the vault is much less interesting, because it’s mostly crystal, gold and silver (if not real, at least in appearance), and the theme shakers are the ones worth watching. But it’s still an impressive part of the collection.