The Best Thing You Can Do Today: Spend the day museum-hopping

Today’s a federal holiday — the official observance of Veterans Day — so that means federal offices are closed, and so are many banks and other businesses. Hillsborough schools are closed, but Pinellas schools are open (sorry, Pinellas kids).

And you know what else is open? Many of our area’s best museums. If you have the day off, or need to entertain a bored Hillsborough kid, or if you just want to catch up on an exhibition you may have missed, this is your day. Catch the must-see trio of shows under the Season of Love umbrella at the Tampa Museum of Art; immerse yourself in the fascinating self-portraiture show at St. Pete’s Museum of Fine Arts; see Clyde Butcher’s photos of Salvador Dali’s Spain at The Dali; or take that bored kid to the Tampa Bay History Center (pirates!) or the Glazer Children’s Museum on Tampa’s Curtis Hixon Park. The new James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Pete is open; so’s the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, literally a walk across the park from TMA.

So get out there — and get in there! And while you’re at it, thank a veteran.