Muncie, Indiana: Bob Ross Experience

Not really worth $15 in my opinion. It is small, and they don't even mention his time in the Air Force, so it is somewhat limited. You can walk the grounds of the Minnetrista Cultural Center, but there's not much to see. There is a house that you can enter that has Bob Ross quilts created by folks and sent to the Center -- this was interesting.

Housed mostly in the L.L. Ball Home on the Minnetrista museum campus (some paintings are kept on the upper floor of the neighboring Oakhurst Home), the place where Bob Ross spent his Muncie years has been painstakingly reconstructed into an interactive exhibit.

You can see the living-room-turned-studio, with TV cameras angled toward his signature heavy-duty easel and black paper carefully taped over windows; a sitting room with plaid upholstery, cans of Coke and the odd hair pick; and little anecdotes posted throughout.

Timed tickets are sold to this exhibit, and they carefully check before allowing you to enter. Once in, though, you're encouraged to wander the place, opening drawers, picking up books, and pressing buttons.

The tickets admit you to the other museum buildings: Oakhurst, next door, is the home of the Ball Canning Jar family (their library of 10,000 books includes a pretty sweet hidden bookcase door) and there are rotating exhibits in the main building, as well as some really beautifully planted walking and biking trails along the river.

A gift shop in a separate building offers all the Bob Ross memorabilia you could ever want, from Chia Pets to sticky notes to little Bob Ross Christmas ornaments.