museums

A good thing about Massachusetts is, museums. Tons of 'em. Everywhere. Some of my favorites, listed by city:

Acton

Discovery Museums. Nifty science stuff; gets me into an investigative frame of mind. Highlights include the sky room, which has a window for you to peek outside and look to the sky. A quote from Diane Ackerman ("Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky.") is printed on the domed doorway. There's also a giant magnet, a black dish which produces huge quantities of steam, and a workshop with genuine, sharp, working tools.

Arnold Arboretum. It's an arboretum. It's huge, and it's got tons of plants. Just go visit. Right now, preferably.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Quiet, serene, beautiful. The rooms are often sunlit; there's a garden courtyard in the center of the museum, with statuary and flowers. It's a pleasant change from a typical museum-y atmosphere.
Museum of Fine Art. Walls lined with relics from Egyptian tombs; paintings, postcards, photographs.
Museum of Science. Maybe not my favorite (I fell down backwards off a MoS escalator when I was small...) but there's an enormous planetarium, a large observatory, an IMAX theatre, and live animal presentations.
TOMB. An "interactive entertainment experience," as they say; not quite a museum, but an exhibit of sorts. It's a walk-though course in which participants "explore" an Egyptian tomb, solving riddles and puzzles along the way. A bit corny, but fun, nevertheless.

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. The sculpture park is significantly nicer than the museum, in my opinion. It's wide and green, open to the public dawn until dusk, and is free on Mondays. Trees and wetlands, and shifting exhibits of sculpture.

Plimoth Plantation. I didn't spell that wrong. It's living history, which means you get to talk to staff as though they were Pilgrims in the 1700s, and they'll answer in that role. Check out some American Indian history afterwards, too, so your viewpoint doesn't get skewed.

Salem Witch Museum. It's silly, and a few viewings of the presentation are usually enough, but the dramatic edge can be fun. The neighborhood is interestingly witchy but not particularly historical.