Dear Pilot,
My guides were more subtle about it but suggested the same thing; that if these letters got any longer, they’d have to put more stamps on them. They were nice about it though. Letter writing is something that people are taught in school as children. You and I are behind the curve, but they’re amused by how well we’ve taken to it. Too well, apparently!
It does remain busy inside during the holiday season, but it’s too cold for guests in the winter so they close our yard to them for the season. One cannot see everything at the museum in one day so if the visitors are going to forgo an exhibit in winter, it would probably be ours anyway. Even if we were still open then, we’d probably still not be working as much.
Since we’re not, 2903 likes to spend his days off sleeping. He spent about a decade in storage before coming here so he’s in the habit of sleeping in. The rest of us try to be quieter to let him, but it makes for a dull day.
Inside, I’m told, they only get Thanksgiving and Christmas off because there’s so much to be done over the holidays. Then once they’re over, the Christmas trees have to be taken down and all the decorations packed up. My guide says that the trees are perfectly enchanting up to about a week into January, when they then become a very large task to be done. When they started Christmas Around the World though, they just had one big tree that they redecorated every night for a different country. Having fifty separate trees that stay up all month seems more efficient even if you have to take them all down at once.
Once the trees were out of the way, they set up a Mexican-American Art Fiesta exhibit. Did you know singing and dancing are also art? I’d never thought about it before, but they had different performers come and there were a lot of school field trips to see them. That exhibit finished up on the 2nd, and now we’re hosting science fair projects from the local schools. And that’s all just since New Year! I’d never thought much about what happens indoors, but since you’ve been telling me about your shops, I’ve found out that the inside of my museum changes all the time, much more often than the outside does.
Are you the only diesel at the IRM? I suppose that’s not surprising, but I guess I just thought there’d be more of us there. Then again, when I was preserved, there was certainly… debate about the merits of it. I had the benefit of a notable local history to bolster the argument (and being a former Century of Progress exhibit makes you particularly appealing to the MSI), but diesels are still very new. But we get older every day! And if your museum started out as only for interurban cars and now they have steam engines and trolley buses and you, I’m sure more diesels will find their way there too.
They’ll be lucky to have such a singular engine to welcome them.
Your friend,
Pioneer