Monday, August 30, 2021

A Day in Taos

 Today we decided to drive from Santa Fe up to Taos. Taos is known as the home and burial place of Kit Carson but these days is more noted as an artist colony.  Artists began to gather here around 1900 and their successors form the economy of the community today.  The population is only about 5,000.

Right where we parked the car on the plaza there was an amazing rock and mineral shop.  We were both drawn immediately inside.  While their business is to sell things, the shop is almost a museum in the beauty of the rock and mineral specimens and the ways in which they are displayed.



On the other side of the plaza was the drum shop.  There were drums of every size in large numbers.  Again, though they were there to sell, the shop was like a museum itself.


Another Santa Fe Day

 Yesterday we spent another beautiful day walking around Santa Fe.  There were two places here where we spent very memorable time.

One was the Georgia O’Keefe Museum.  After her husband, Alfred Stieglitz died, she made New Mexico her permanent home and spent the rest of her life here dying when she was nearly ninety-nine.  The museum here has an abundance of her work beginning when she was a teenage art student through her final Southwestern themed work that grew from her life here.  


Both Trish and I agreed that we like the bold colors of her earlier work more than the almost faded pastels of her later work.

We also had a second visit to the Cathedral of Saint Francis which is located just diagonally across from our hotel.  Besides being quite beautiful the Cathedral is one of the anchor settings of Willa Cather’s Death Comes For The Archbishop, perhaps my favorite of all Cather’s books.  It is the kind of place that is food for the imagination.


We have one more day here and we shall spend it on a little trip outside of town.

Sunday, August 29, 2021

In Santa Fe

 Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Santa Fe.  It was a beautiful day, so, after we were checked in to our hotel, La Fonda On The Plaza, (one of my favorite hotels anywhere) Trish and I started out walking.

Our first destination, right behind the hotel, was the Sisters of Loretta Chapel to see the miraculous stairs.  When the chapel was built, starting in 1783, no one seemed to notice one thing missing from the architectural plans until the building was near completion.  The plans failed to include a way to get from the main floor to the choir balcony thirty feet or so up in the rear of the building. The only way the Sisters could get there was by ladder.

They prayed to Saint Joseph for a solution, and, a gray haired man arrived on a donkey volunteering to help.  His only tools were a saw, a square, and a hammer.  From mysteriously obtained wood he built a circular set of 33 stairs which ascended to the choir with no nails and no visible support.  He then disappeared and his identity remains unknown.


The stairs were scary to the Sisters, so, the stair rails seen today were added.  The construction is as mysterious as the carpenter himself.  Many of the Sisters believed it was built by Saint Joseph himself.



Saturday, August 28, 2021

Museum of Natural History

 On our last day in Albuquerque, we decided to walk over to the Museum of Natural History.


The museum is laid out as a walk through geological time from the big band to the present.  Since New Mexico is such a treasure trove of archaeological discoveries, the possibilities here are endless.


We loved walking through a volcano from its birthplace far beneath the earth’s surface up to its eruption zone.  There were multitudes of displays ending with a beautiful collection of sea shells.  We don’t have these on Ocracoke!



Thursday, August 26, 2021

Sandia Peak Tramway

 Today Trish and I had a great adventure.  We took the Sandia Peak Tramway to the top of 10,300 foot Sandia Peak high above Albuquerque.

Our tram car.  We had about two dozen people on board.

The tram was built in Lucern, Switzerland, and is the longest tramway in the United States.  We traveled more than a vertical mile  in fifteen minutes with spectacular views out over all of Albuquerque and far beyond.

All of Albuquerque spreads out below.

Once at the top, we could also see off the east side as we were right on the crest of a long ridge.  We looked and looked and then had our lunch in the restaurant at the top.


It was 65 degrees at the top, but, as we came back down the temperature rose to 95.  We had a great time doing this.



Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Old Town Albuquerque

 We are staying is a little casita in Old Town Albuquerque for a few days.  We are just a few steps from the plaza and the center of Old Town.

Our restaurant last night was a work of art in itself.

It is easy to walk everywhere from here.  The old church was founded in 1706.  The present building was built in 1792 and has Adobe walls that are five feet thick.  

Church of San Felipe de Neri

When we went over to the bakery this morning, the children from the Catholic school were all out parading on some sort of little trip.  It was so sweet to watch them and see the care which their teachers accorded them.

School day.

We asked to be able to see inside the church and a lady got the key and opened it up so we could visit.  It is so loved and beautifully cared for.  It was a privilege to visit and know of the long history being here.

The lovely altar area of the church.


Tuesday, August 24, 2021

National Cowboy Museum

 One of the reasons I wanted to stop in Oklahoma City was to take Trish to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  This is a huge and marvelous museum on the outskirts of the city that contains everything from paintings to sculpture to dioramas to guns to saddles…and much more.

Ready to go inside.

We could have spent several days with the artwork.  Perhaps our favorite was a Bierstadt painting of a German settlers wagon train.  The light seems to originate from within the painting itself and it seemed that if we stayed around, the sun would actually set.

How did he do that?

We loved the Remington sculpture bronze castings and marveled at the tiny details that still come out through the lost wax casting process.  These were filled with life and motion.

It’s called Cowboys Come to Town for Christmas.

There were saddles that changed from utility to artwork with the exquisite leather tooling and dioramas of full size life on the frontier.  Since my last visit here, there is much more about cowgirls and native peoples in a very appropriate way.

A work of art in leather.

We loved the entire visit and will surely stop here again.

Monday, August 23, 2021

National Banjo Museum

 Trish and I are now in Oklahoma City, and, as soon as we got checked in to our hotel, we walked down the street to the National Banjo Museum.

Early banjos on display.

In 1998, Jack Canine, a business man and devoted banjo player, founded the first banjo museum in Guthrie, Oklahoma.  When his collection outgrew the space, Canine bought and renovated a building in Bricktown, Oklahoma City.  When he died not quite a year ago, he left a five million dollar endowment to operate and care for the museum in perpetuity.

Beautiful works of musical art.

The collection now displays more than four hundred banjos, many historically unique, and beautifully interprets banjo history from African American origins to the present.

Well presented evolution of the banjo.

Banjos from the likes of Earl Scruggs to Pete Seeger to Steve Martin are part of the collection. Many of the instruments are themselves works of art.

The newest display is Women of the Banjo which includes great music and filmography. Whether you love banjo music or not, the museum is worth a visit!

The collection is vast.


Sunday, August 22, 2021

A Family Visit

 Earlier in the summer we had Trish’s ninety-two-year-old mother, Betty, at our house for five weeks. It was a wonderful visit.

Yesterday we drove from Bentonville over to Claremore, Oklahoma, to have a visit with Betty’s baby brother, Uncle Truman, and his wife, Aunt Linda.

Uncle Truman, Trish, and Aunt Linda.

They are both retired teachers and are totally full of stories and memories of family events including many from Trish’s childhood.  We had a wonderful story sharing time. Also, like me, they both drove school buses when growing up.

Uncle Truman is also a skilled and artistic woodworker.  We got to visit his shop and he even gave Trish a beautiful wooden pie box that he designed and perfectly crafted.

A tour of the woodworking shop.

We had a wonderful time and look forward to stopping there again on another adventure.

Crystal Bridges

 Trish and I spent most of the day at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, now ten years old.

Sam Walton’s daughter, Alice, is the impetus and major donor to this fabulous museum having donated more than $317,000,000 to its establishment so far.  Her inspiration and work with architect Moshe Safdie have led to this creation of a 217,000 square foot complex of museum buildings that seem to hang between sky and water.

The museum is always open free of charge thanks to Walmart, and, there are special funds to bring children here on field trips all paid for.

The Crystal Bridges complex.

Inside it is all magic.There are wonderful mixtures of art that call for new thinking and perceptions of how we see things.  Right in the first gallery there is a juxtaposition of Charles Wilson Peal’s classic George Washington beside Howard Finster’s primitive religious Washington.  

Side by side they are both different.

One whole gallery was dedicated to images of beauty.  What do we think is beautiful when we think of humans and how are those different ideas played out in art work.



What we wished for was to be here longer and come back multiple times. What is human beauty to you?


Friday, August 20, 2021

Bentonville, Arkansas

 For a couple of days we are stopping over in Bentonville, Arkansas.  Thirty years ago I used to come to Bentonville to do school work.  There was nothing at all here then, just the mountains of Northwest Arkansas.  Today is another world.

Sam Walton’s original store, opened in 1950 when he was 32 years old.







This is, of course, Sam Walton’s home and the birthplace of Walmart.  The little town has been totally reshaped is a very positive way with parks and street side restaurants abounding.  There is a growing young population and people are biking everywhere.

On the trail to the museum.

We came here to visit the Crystal Bridges Art Museum, the project of Walton daughters, now celebrating its tenth anniversary.

Trish and I were excited about the museum, but had no idea that the garden and woodland trails surrounding were so beautiful and also filled with art.  

We are in a B & B right beside the gardens and we have walked and walked.  The gardens are also right in downtown Bentonville and the 37 mile bike path passes through.  We are most impressed at this little town and are having a wonderful time being here.  

Next we will take you inside the museum itself.



Thursday, August 19, 2021

Leaving Petit Jean.

 Today we finish our lovely time at Petit Jean State Park.  It has been very restful and beautiful.

The first day we arrived, we took a little hike to see the Cedar Creek waterfall. But, it has been so very dry here that there was no water at all and we couldn’t even hear the sound of a trickle.


Totally dried up waterfall!
We did, though enjoy the walk and thought we might come back again during our stay.  

Well, yesterday we had a very heavy day of rain and it continued into the night, so, time to check the waterfall again on our way out.

Water this time!

Guess what, all the rain that has come down had nourished the little stream and we got a waterfall at last.  Not as much as in a wetter season, but, it proved to us that it was really there.

One of the things we enjoyed here very much has been the rock formations. There are gnarly walls with wildly artistic twists everywhere.  The first people who came here must have wondered at the cause of these formations.

Gnarly natural shapes.

Then there are many rock formations called turtle backs due to their peculiar erosion patterns.  In all this was a most interesting place to visit and spend a little rest time.

Some of the many turtle back rocks.


Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Petit Jean Auto Museum

 In 1953 Winthrop Rockefeller moved to Arkansas and founded Winrock Farms and Winrock Enterprises atop the Petit Jean Ridge.  In 1966 Rockefeller was elected governor of Arkansas.

In addition to other interests, Rockefeller was a classic car collector.  He built on the mountain here  his personal collection of vintage cars museum.  Though his original collection was sold to Harrah’s after his early death, the building was given to the state.  It was then reopened as a classic car museum filled with about fifty beautiful cars either donated or on loan, including several of the vehicles in the original Rockefeller collection.

A 1906 Sears mail order car.

Since today was a rainy day, Trish and I decided to spend the morning at the museum.

The 1914 food truck that saw service for 32 years.

The vehicles range from about 1900 to the early sixties and are all in perfect condition.  We were the only visitors there this morning and enjoyed a slow time all to ourselves.

As a teenager, I would have loved this yellow Jeepster!

There were so many beautiful cars and other small artifacts.  One nice thing is that the museum is small…only about fifty cars, so we could take our time and still not get overloaded and feel like we needed to quit in the middle.

A beautiful 1934 Packard 120.

In the middle of our time, there was a very hard rainstorm, confirming our decision to spend the morning like this.  The sun came out just as we were finished and now we are sitting in the swing back on our cabin porch.


Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas

 Petit Jean was an 18th century French woman. Her fiancĂ© was going to explore in America and did not want to marry her until he returned. So, she disguised herself as a boy (Little John) and joined the expedition, unknown to him.  Once near here, she became ill and, as she was dying, revealed herself to her fiancĂ©.  She died and was buried here.  

In 1923 this high ridge land above the Arkansas River became a state park.

Today Trish and I went on three little hikes.  First we went to the Bear Caves, an amazing collection of rock formations with cave like indentations.  The rock striations and color streaks were amazing.


Afterwards we thought we were going to a waterfall, but it is do very dry that there was no water at all.  All dried up.

The real treat of the day was our hike to the Cave House.  It was an amazing deep cliff overhang that was occupied by early native peoples.  It could actually be a very usable place to a large number of people to live.  There were even petroglyphs on the cave walls.


Now we are back at our CCC cabin for the afternoon.

Monday, August 16, 2021

Paducah

 After leaving Opryland, we came to Paducah, home of the National Quilt Museum.  I have been here before, but this is Trish’s first visit.

Paducah is an interesting little town that is historically dominated by the river. Here the Tennessee loses itself into the Ohio and a few miles away the Cumberland joins before they all become part of the Mississippi.  There is a series of murals on the river flood wall beside town that tell of the town’s important river history.


The Quilt Museum is downtown two blocks from the river.  There are constantly changing exhibits here and right now the two dominating are a giant wall with over 3,000  squares, one named for every person killed on 9/11.  This is leading up to the Twentieth Anniversary.  There are also a series of COVID quilts.


Full wall with 9/11 quilt panels.


There are few traditional quilts on display at this time.  Most of the work we saw was very contemporary.  What I really learned was to appreciate the possible artistic additions possible with good mechanical quilting.  I had thought this to involve only patterns of quilting but learned that a good long arm person can paint with thread and texture in amazing ways to totally finish the quilt top as beginning place.

The texture of the wood is all added by the long arm machine.


We both had a wonderful appreciative and educational visit.


 



Sunday, August 15, 2021

At the Opryland.

 Our next stop after the Smokies has been Nashville, Tennessee, or at least as close in to Nashville as the Opryland Hotel.  We love to stay at this place with its marvelous indoor gardens and water features.

Since we were here and since the Grand Old Opry has opened back up full scale, we got tickets to the Friday night show.  There is a walkway directly from the hotel to the theatre and it takes less than ten minutes to walk over there.  There was rain predicted, but, we saw and felt none of that.

On our way!

The most fun about going to the Opryland is being part of the live event itself. We had seats on the front row of the balcony just over the side edge of the stage so we could see the audience as well as the performers.  They both provided us with a great show. Rhonda Vincent did a good job and a real treat was stand-up comedian Brad Upton.  Check him out.



The headliners were Crystal Gayle and Billy Ray Cyrus, but, there were several fine performers throughout the show.  The Opryland stage band and backup singers are always amazing as they accompany and back up anyone who is in the limelight.

Crystal just keeps going!

When we got to the headliners, Crystal Gayle upheld her reputation as a long-term and consistent star.  Then there was Billy Ray Cyrus.  We could have gone home happier if he had stayed home.

In face, he almost did! He brought with him his Pentecostal preacher brother and sister in law to sing Pentecostal songs with him.  They were awfully happy to be there!  Then he turned a whole song over to an Australian girl named Firerose whom he found somewhere.  Finally, after daring the audience to not ask for  Achy Breaky Heart, he got everyone standing up and screaming the song along with him to cover up his absent voice.  It was not a good ending! (And security had to come in to settle things down in one corner.)

Rough!

All in all, it was a great show of music, jokes, and people watching. Not like the old days at the Ryman!


Rest Stop in Williamsburg

 Last week Trish and I were in an intensive week long workshop in Connecticut. When we finished and headed to North Carolina, we had a day t...