Carousel Horses!

Our local museum is featuring an exhibit on Carousel horses (and other animals). These are all from the Carousel Restoration Museum in Oregon. We had a guided tour with our homeschool group and it was fantastic. Both the children and I learned so much about carousels.

This beauty is the most valuable horse here. Price $45,000. Deb's personal favorite.

This horse had gilding on his mane.

They had more than just horses. They had quite a few other animals like dragons, tigers, lions, sheep, and even a fish. The chicken below belonged to a carousel that was entirely chickens. Nathan wanted to see that!

This is a European animal and notice the two seats. This was for courting.

They had horses that were in various stages of repairs so that you could see the process required to restore one of these beauties. They also had horses that had been damaged by people who thought they knew how to restore them. The neatest thing is that this carousel restoration museum in Oregon restores these horses so that they can be used in carousels. They want them to be ridden.

Below the children are trying out the eccentric gear used to make the horses go up and down.