Category Archives: Uncategorized

We’ve had a busy time since we got back.  At least that’s the way it seems in retrospect.  It didn’t seem that way as we were going through it, I have to say.  The highlight of the last three months has been the updating of the house, refurbishing the small bath, then our master bath, and putting down wood floors upstairs.  It involved working slowly with our original contractor, only to finally give up on him and get another one to help out, and then starting over again with a new contractor set to get the master bathroom and closet updated.  We paid a lot more for it than if we had done it ourselves, but then again, we were able to get it done relatively quickly.  We also had the pond redone, and that turned our orignal pond into a much deeper (if not so much larger) pond that now allows our fish to swim around with great abandon.

We visited California again toward the middle of May, to attend Courtney’s graduation (Master’s degree, and teaching credential — congratulations to her!), and then after a week in Santa Barbara (a great visit — even though we’d spent time many years ago in Santa Barbara, it has changed greatly since then, and so it was like finding a whole new world.  Kyle was there with us, as he was also out for the graduation).  We then went to Palmdale to celebrate Courtney’s birthday.

Gwen had her three cousins visit in mid-June, which created a natural deadline for getting all the work done on the house.  It turned out to be a useful forcing function for the work, and led to some challenges, but not really many.  It also was planned that I would go away to Chicago, and visit Kyle, which is indeed what happened.  Unfortunately, I missed greeting the cousins, but Gwen said she had a marvelous time with them.  For me, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit with Kyle, including getting to see where he hangs out during the day (1871, as it is referred to), a business run as a collective of the entrepreneurial businesses that use the space on the 12th floor.  I spent time during his working hours at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Field Museum (natural history).  Over the weekend, in addition to getting to talking with Kyle, and going places with him, we met up with his girlfriend, Suzie, and it was my pleasure to get to know a little about her as well.  I ate well while there (as I always do with Kyle), including a marvelous breakfast on my last morning there consisting of scrambled eggs and a rhubarb / strawberry coffee cake provided by Suzie.

I’m not sure I’ve got this retirement stuff figured out; there are many troubling aspects I’m concerned about.  Having a little history now does soften things, however, but all this is for future blogs.

Friday April 5, 2013

Now the trek back to Michigan started in ernest as we traveled to Indianapolis.  This trip was over 7.5 hours today and unlike our previous days of driving, the landscape was not very exciting – farm lands and the most we could expect was rolling hills.  We got into a bit of a routine, however.  Every so often, when we needed to relieve ourselves, we would stop at a fast food outlet (as opposed to a gas station), and I would get a coffee “something”.  McDonald’s was usually the restaurant of choice, as they have clean restrooms, and now sell coffee frapes, lattes, iced coffee, mocha caramels, and so on.  It had been years since I had been in one, so I was unaware of their changing menu, but now they do sell these things.  So I tried a number of their offerings over these driving days.

I also noticed that the states differed in many of the details.  As I remarked on earlier, the maximum speed was 65, 70, or 75, depending on the state and road type.  Trucks are not differentiated from cars in many of the states as far as the speed signs were concerned, unlike Michigan where there is typically a 10 MPH difference indicated.  Indiana differentiates by five miles an hour.  They also are different in what they are willing to do for drivers.  Missouri was rather tepid about drivers.  They provided good roads, and readable road signs, but that was about it.  They do provide the occasional “truck parking” area.  Illinois provided the occasional “rest area”, but Indiana was (at least in our sojourn) the least hospitable.  Every 20 miles or so, there was another road construction activity.  Fortunately, we passed these on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, as there was very little real work going on.  Aside from limiting traffic to one lane, though, because there were not any workers on site, they didn’t limit speed.  The few that were still active slowed the traffic way down (below 45 mph), in addition to narrowing  the road to one lane.  In all fairness, I’m sure the idea was to get the work done in Spring before the major holiday season began, but they could have been a great inconvenience, instead of the minor annoyance we experienced.

Saturday April 6, 2013

The final leg of this trip to get home.  Perhaps not too surprisingly, it felt good to be in Michigan again.  We came across the state on the I69, a very comfortable divided highway.  The divider is in many cases wide and wooded, and occasionally in  past drives, I would find myself slowing down as a deer appeared on the edge of the divider with the look in his/her eye of longing to be on the other side of the road.  Thank goodness no deer appeared as I was traveling at high speed.  It was only in Michigan, it occurs to me, that I saw a semi truck with a great “rack” of bars rising from its front bumper.  Could it be there to fend off the occasional deer who strayed into the traffic lanes?

The house is in great shape, except the second bathroom, which our contractor has not finished yet.  He has lots of excuses, but the fact of his having four months to finish a simple refurbishment in a 4 by 6 foot bathroom leaves us with concerns.  The water came back on, the dust was not too heavy on the flat surfaces, and (sure enough) there are a few left-over piles of snow down at the bottom of the driveway to remind us why we spent so much time away.  Beth from next door had kindly planted some pansies in the planter right outside our garage door as a “welcome home”.

So, our first winter vacation has completed.  In retrospect, I really enjoyed it, and even though I missed Michigan, and the people here, as well as the comfort and convenience of home, I suspect we’ll be off next year for the winter as well.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Robert Douglass, born 1814, died 1889

In the morning, we went to the Greer cemetery.  There we found Robert Henry Douglass, and one of his sons (John), but markers for no other Douglasses.  We, of course, are left to wonder where Sarah might be buried, not to mention other of the 11 children in the family.  The Greer cemetery is located on land near where these Douglasses lived, but perhaps surprisingly not near any present day churches.  The only information I later was able to turn up on the Internet indicated that the land where the cemetery is located was deeded to George W. Greer from the Government, and it was (at least in part) Greer’s efforts that started the cemetery.  The earliest tombstone marker according to the book (“History of Johnson County, Missouri”) is 1844.

We then went down and drove by the land where Gwen’s great great grandparents lived, and owned.  Due to the way the roads currently go, and our desire not to disturb anyone, we stayed to the existing roads, and can only say we got close.  The land in the area is still farmland.  It is not absolutely flat, as we saw in some areas of Indiana and Illinois, but consisted of mostly flat areas with rolling hills occasionally to break up the vista.

We then went to High Point Church cemetery, where Mary Garrett Perry is buried.  This cemetery is indeed behind the High Point Baptist Church, and at least according to the sign out front, a church still going strong.  The building is large enough to hold a congregation of some size (perhaps 100 people) , although there was no one there to let us see inside.  The cemetery is out back. 

We continued on to the Henry County seat (Clinton) to see what their genealogy museum might offer.  The articles on Robert Henry Douglass suggested he and family might have moved to Henry County when first coming from Virginia (in 1848), and then after a short while moved on to Johnson County.  Aside from getting some lunch at a really nice new restaurant on the Clinton central square (they had only been open a week we found out), we really didn’t find anything of help.

We then came back to the Historical Museum in Warrensburg.  We met Lisa, and she was able to give us access to the probate record of William Robert Douglass, Gwen’s great grandfather.   She also had on the wall the Plat map for Johnson County as of 1870 which enabled us to see where R. H. Douglass and family had land at that time.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Travel to Warrensburg and Leeton, Missouri in search of Gwen’s family (Douglass and Perry) history.  After traveling for four hours or so, we found our hotel in Warrensburg, and headed to the Leeton Museum, an almost private collection of Bob Wyatt, whose family were heavily involved in the building up of Leeton, and who now is the main keeper (curator) of the museum.  Much of the material donated to the museum is from his family, but it also comes from many others in the area.  The museum itself is housed in a building that is sorely in need of maintenance — insulation in the ceiling, water connections, and heating and cooling in the appropriate seasons.  Bob has done a yeoman’s job organizing the material, but there is so much of it, it spills out everywhere including the entrance staircase.  He also has organized the records (especially of the local school) to make available in almost yearbook fashion material on the earliest graduates (going back to the 1919 class, when the school came to a new building).  This material provided us some interesting looks at Dean and Dale Douglass, who graduated in 1919 and 1922 (I think), respectively.  Both were heavily involved in the school, participating in the sports and government, and other things I am sure we now have recorded (but in Gwen’s notes, not mine).  In addition to letting us look at all the materials he had that related, Bob took us out to the Shiloh Church cemetery, where we got to see gravestones for Douglasses and Perry’s.

Graves at Shiloh Cemetery

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Today, we visited the Johnson County (where Leeton is) museum from 1 until 4, as that when they are open.  Lisa curates material from a number of the towns around here.  She has unexpectedly been called away for the day, so wasn’t there, but one of the volunteers (Betty) was, and she was very helpful.  We found the best, as in most detailed, article (written in 1934 by a guy named Ferguson) of the Douglass family that lived in the area.  We also found the Johnson County census records for 1840, 50 and 60 which enabled us to place Robert Henry Douglass’ (Gwen’s great great grandfather) family as arriving in 1848-49 from Virginia.   There are numerous other Douglass-named people in the 1840 census, so it is quite possible he was following in the footsteps of cousins or more distant relatives known to him at the time.

Robert Henry Douglass (and A. and T.R.). Douglass properties sit astride Jefferson and Post Oak Townships in 1870 (lightened area)

It was fun sifting through the old records.  From the museum, we went to the Johnson County seat, to the Recorder’s office, and with the help of the nice women there, found land transaction records related to  (Gwen’s) Douglasses.  In particular, we were looking at Robert Henry Douglass, who was the one who brought his family to the area from Virginia.  In 1850, a transfer of property from Robert Henry and his wife Sarah to Benjamin Holmes is recorded.  I took a copy of it back to the hotel room, and as best I could, deciphered it.  It was (as one would expect), written in a formulaic way, with the “party of the first part” and “party of the second part” identified and referred to, the nature of the transaction, and the detailed description of the land being transferred.  Since Missouri is one of the states that was part of the Public Land Survey System set up in the late 1700s as a way to define property boundaries in the largely unexplored (at the time) areas of the North American land mass, the descriptions in the conveyance are mostly all defined using “Township, Range, Section” nomenclature.  Toward the end, however, there is a parcel of land described by using a fixed corner, and then describing the boundary as if one is walking it, using a term “poles” as a unit of length measurement.   It specifies the direction one walks the given number of poles, and then indicates the next direction to be taken.  According to several internet sources, the “pole” is equivalent to what we might now call a “rod”, and is 16.5 feet long.  The property is further proscribed by saying it was all “conveyed to me and Benjamin A. Holmes by Benjamin Snelling…” As the transaction is consummated through the exchange of $1.00, it would appear the point of it was to separate the Douglass portion of Snelling’s land sale from Holmes portion.  The next day, we saw in the Johnson County museum a large land map of the county as it was in 1870, and indeed R. H. Douglass still had some 120 acres in the same area as the land described in the conveyance, so that would seem to confirm the assumption.

A fascinating detail in the record is that the Justice of the Peace who was the presiding officer for the conveyance, states he took Sarah off separately (where she was away from her husband) and explained to her the implications of the land transfer.  The Justice affirms she understood the implications and agreed to the terms as explained.   In glancing through a couple of other conveyances involving William J. Douglass and his wife, this action on the part of the Justice of the Peace was standard practice.  I am led to wonder why this specific approach to insuring the wife understands and agrees to the conveyance independently of her husband, and the declaration of it in the recorded conveyance.  There must be a story there.

Johnson County, and we assume other such rural areas, publishes (to this day) periodically what are called “Plat” maps, which are section-by-section maps showing how the land is currently divided and who owns which properties.  We bought the one for 2013 as a reference.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Today, another travel day, was spent driving from Dallas to Bentonville, Arkansas, the home of the Crystal Bridges Museum (founded by the daughter of Sam Walton, of Walmart fame and fortune).

A lake in Oklahoma

Traveling out of Dallas was a long process; mainly because the city itself is so large, and the speeds limited to 60 and 65.  It was raining when we started as well, so visibility was not the greatest.  The terrain is flat (or rolling hills at best).  After we got out of the city, the hills were a bit more visible.  Our route took us through Oklahoma, and we happily sang along to the songs of the musical as we drove through the state.  The way we came into Oklahoma was such that we only know we had crossed the state line then the cars started to have more Oklahoma license plates.  Only Arkansas greeted us with a great “Welcome Center” both coming and going from the state.  Missouri did not provide us with a “welcome” either!

The only thing about Oklahoma we noticed was the color of the lakes we passed.  Instead of a blue, or a bluish gray color, the lakes were brown.  Like they were such a mixture of water and sand that the sand did not have the possibility of sinking to the bottom.  Strange!

Monday, April 1, 2013

The front entrance. Note the silver tree at right.

The back entrance. The creek ends in a pond between buildings.

Our visit to the Crystal Bridges Museum started by a quiet trip from our hotel across the freeway to the town of Bentonville itself.  This town is clearly benefiting from and enjoying the largess of the Walton family.  We passed a very nicely appointed park with numbers of tennis courts and a field with numerous soccer nets set out for practice use.  The Museum is located in a wooded area off the beaten path, and we proceeded through the trail as marked by the signs until we found the parking lot.  It doesn’t open until 11:00, but we had little to do, so we showed up about an hour early with the intention of walking some of the trails through the woods.  A couple of school buses turned in ahead of us, and so clearly the Museum opens earlier for school groups – a great idea.  We walked from the parking area along a broad concrete sidewalk path through the woods to what appeared to be office buildings with a parking lot of its own (clearly the employees get there before 11!) and walked down along a service road with the idea of finding what we could.  We came down to an art walk, with statues of interest along a path that led to the back entrance of the museum.  The statues along the path, bronze in color, are really quite fascinating.  They are of animals, with striking features.  The end of the path (onto a street) is highlighted with a tortoise and across the street, a hare, much larger than life, but looking like they are enjoying the race.  Further along there is a bear by a stream, catching a fish.  He appears to be life size, and doing what I’ve seen pictures of bears doing, but in a playful attitude.  The most interesting of these is the last one – a pig with the most beatific smile on its face.  As we approached the back entrance to the museum, the next statue we come upon is positioned on a pedestal, a cowboy on a bucking horse with his pistol out shooting into the air.  The material it is made out of is shiny – glassy, even – with subtle colors underneath that shine through when the sun hits them.  With the sunlight on it, it had rich greens, blues and browns, while without the sun, it almost disappeared into the surrounding wood.  Very well done!  We walked along a different path from the bottom entrance to the museum and arrived at the top entrance just as they were letting people in (early) to go through the process of getting ticketed and getting our museum tour iPhones.  The tour we wanted to go on most was the visiting Rockwell exhibition, so that was where we went first.

Sure enough, the school tour groups were ushered out of the Rockwell exhibit just at 11:00, and once they had retreated, we were given the opportunity to step in and take our time going through it.  There were quite a number of Rockwell’s paintings on display, and then in another part, we were treated to the opportunity to see all 323 Post Magazine covers.  The main thing that draws me to Rockwell is the detail and the story I find in his paintings and in his covers.  To be able to think up the story, and then to find and paint the images that clearly express that story, that is Rockwell’s gift.  To be able to illustrate it in such detail just makes it so much easier for the viewer to understand the story.  An iconic example: the picture is three boys (about 12 – 13 years old) and their dog running to the left, in front of a sign which says “No Swimming”.  They are carrying or partially wearing their clothes, their hair is wet, and their feet are bare.  Obviously they are trying to avoid being caught by the authorities for swimming in the pond where they shouldn’t have been.  I get a real chuckle out of this picture every time I look at it.  Compare it to a much later picture Rockwell did with a young black girl in a white dress with school books in her arm walking along in the center of a square created by four much larger men (heads not in the picture), with yellow armbands on their left upper arms saying “Deputy US Marshall”. This second one does not evoke a chuckle, rather it is a grim reminder of the desegregation trials and tribulations of the 1970s.  But each has a clear story to tell, and the details in the pictures help make their respective messages clear.  The exhibit was fun to go through.

I always enjoy the opportunity to see Rockwell’s work, and this was no exception.  I like to work out the story, and to make the details fit.  In this case, with all the Post covers in one place, it was really easy to see similarities and differences through the years.  Similarities included the use of the same models for the pictures.  They, of course, were not the same for all the years, but in nearby years the models were similar.  His whimsy is always present, as is his clever choice of pictures to illustrate the concepts.  Differences – he grows more mature in his themes as current events begin to encroach on his illustrations.  The example above shows that as well.  Swimming where it is forbidden is a whole lot different than shifting the perspective of a whole world of people.  Perhaps the best remembered of his pictures, though are the paintings he did to illustrate Roosevelt’s four freedoms during WWII.

The rest of our time was spent going through the permanent collection at the museum.  It is a fascinating collection.  It is primarily American art – starting with the earliest painting of Indian life created from a set of graphics done by a person who came to the colonies.  There were people who painted the families that had the money to have it done in the 1700s, and some of their work was on display.  Some remarkably done paintings from the 1800s – landscapes, and scenes from the western part of the US.  Pictures that are full length in height of women of the late 1800s, early 1900s were there.  The curators have found some remarkable work, including some sculptures that are amazing.  As the work passes on into the 20^th century, it gets into abstraction, including an Andy Warhol.   We didn’t spend too much time on this part, but it allows us something to look forward to for next time.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Saturday is Dallas day.  We got ourselves out, went to the 6^th Floor Museum, then moved to the Nasher Sculpture Park and then spent some time in the Dallas Museum of Art.

The Sixth Floor Museum is in what was the Texas School Book Depository building, where Lee Harvey Oswald made himself famous by shooting President Kennedy in 1963.  The museum is situated on the 6^th and 7^th floors, with the rest of the building not open to the public (owned by a governmental agency with their offices).  The exhibits first take you back (in our case) or to (in the case of those who were not alive at the time) the Jack Kennedy era, starting with some biographical information on him.  The main exhibit starts really, however, with JFK’s running for the Presidency in 1960.  It recreates the times – books that were out then (e.g., To Kill a Mockingbird,  Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), movies extant (e.g., La Dolci Vita, Spartacus, Psycho), and the music of the era (Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker (the Twist) and the Drifters top the singles charts for the year).  It doesn’t go into the politics of the time (Quemoy and Matsu, for example), rather it talks about the youth of Kennedy as he wins and assumes office.  The politicians that preceded him into the White House had been elder statesmen, while he is a young man with a beautiful wife and young children.  His energy is especially emphasized, and his youth compared to his predecessors.

Events during his days in office included the Cuban missile crisis, which scared all of us around at the time terribly, but as it turned out, enabled him to earn the respect of Kruschev and the broader world.  He sponsored legislative initiatives in civil rights and the establishment of Peace Corps.   This started a whole new consciousness of what can be done for others in places beyond our borders.  It enabled individuals to serve and through their service, the US to broaden its influence overseas on a people-to-people basis, rather than through political channels.  It made specific what he meant by his statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”   Then there was the response to sputnik, with Kennedy’s challenge to the nation to have a man on the moon and back to earth by the end of the decade.  And the wit and charm of Kennedy, with examples from his press conferences.  This of course gets us back to the optimistic feeling of the early 1960’s, a time of challenge, but a time of incredible opportunity as well.

Then we are taken to the last trip to Dallas, where Kennedy is on a visit to shore up his candidacy for a second term.  After a short flight from Houston, the president and Mrs. Kennedy land at Love field, and are taken on a 10 mile tour around central Dallas aimed at arriving at the Dallas Trade Mart at about 12:30 pm to have lunch with invited guests.   We then are shown through pictures and sounds the events of the fatal seconds as Oswald fires his rifle three times from his 6^th floor perch.  Kennedy is rushed to Parkland Hospital, but is pronounced dead shortly after arrival.  Governor Connelly, who with his wife were in the “jump” seats of the Lincoln Continental presidential car, was hit by one of the bullets, so he also had a stay at Parkland, was operated on there, and eventually recovered.

The next areas talk about the investigations into the assassination.  There were many, starting with the Warren Commission, and lasting until Assassination Records Review Board finished releasing what it could release of the documentation and evidence in 1998.  All further documentation (there are only tax records and other private materials left unreleased) will be released in 2017.  The investigations did not come to identical conclusions.  Some agreed with the Warren Commission that either Oswald worked alone.  Later ones suggested Oswald worked as part of a conspiracy with conspirators unknown, but not the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, Russian government, KGB, Cuban government, mafia.   The conspiracy theories seem hard for people to let go of, and of course with Oswald shot by Jack Ruby, it is impossible that a final resolution will ever happen.  Exhibits included the cameras that took pictures useful to the investigations (the Zapruder film, the most definitive of the pictures as it was taken continuously through the time of the first shot until Kennedy and group were driven away to the hospital, was taken on a camera very much like the one on exhibit, but the actual one was preserved in the National Archives), a discussion of all the forensic evidence, (there is a “single bullet theory” which accounts for Gov. Connelly’s wounds as being caused by the first bullet fired, after it had gone through Kennedy’s throat and out the front of his upper torso by his tie, and then proceeding to go through Connelly’s chest shattering a rib, through his wrist (shattering one of his forearm bones), and lodging in his left thigh.  The angles bear this out, and the only argument against is that the bullet remained in its initial shape rather then being misshapen as a result of its various interactions with Kennedy and Connelly.

After this, the reaction of the world is considered, with a surprising collection of film from around the world showing reactions in countries and cultures too numerous to mention, all of it expressing shock, surprise and sadness at the death of Kennedy.  Lastly, a discussion of the legacy of Kennedy’s 1000 days in office recaps the things he initiated, and discusses briefly the impacts some have had to date on the history of the US and countries around the world.  It is very well done.  The ability to see in a fairly short period of time the results of the investigations into the assassination and the various commissions helps put in perspective the likelihood that it was the work of one man only, rather than a conspiracy.

The ability to see the vantage point of Oswald also helps corroborate the notion that he was a lone shooter (they even have white X’s painted on Elm St where the car was with each of the two main shots.  But the conspiracy notion lingers, and so the question is asked, and of course not really answered as to why so much interest in the notion of a conspiracy?  As my father was wont to say about conspiracy theories, they require much more cooperation and ability to keep a secret than mankind is usually capable of.  But there seems to be no end to the need to investigate them.  In the later investigations, the open microphone of one of the police motorcycles recorded in the precinct station was analyzed to try to determine how many shots were fired.  At first, it appeared to document more than the minimum three shots, thus leading credence to the notion of a second shooter, perhaps on the grassy knoll.  Eventually, however, it was decided (and verified through experiment) that the multiple report sounds were in part echoes off the buildings surrounding Dealey Plaza.

The exhibits allowed Gwen and me to think back to what we were doing when we found out about the assassination.  I was in a high school classroom (English, I think, but it could have been French class).   The intercom just came on, something that never before happened, broadcasting radio reports directly through to the whole school.  Strange, and then the words started to make sense, horrible sense, and eventually, we were instructed to go home.  Gwen’s school was not up to intercoms yet, so there were messages passed to each class, read by the teachers to the students.  The classes were not sent home early but kept at the school with teachers roaming from group to group crying and talking until the normal end of day.

A very good opportunity to think about those times again.

The next step was to go to the Nasher Sculpture Center.  This was in the same complex as the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Asian Art, and I suspect there is also a Museum of Modern Art there as well, but that may just be my poor memory.  The Nasher was hosting an exhibition of works by Ken Price, a contemporary artist that specializes (at this point) in three-dimensional objects with color on the surfaces.  The central piece looks like a multi-toed foot where the toes surround the central core, each the same size, each appearing to have been a large drop coming down from the top of the figure and ending up where it is.  The object is colored in a primary color (blue, red, etc) with splotchy speckles of one or more different colors to give a common array surface effect.  In the exhibition were a number of such objects of various sizes, built on a similar theme.  He also had a number of glazed, multisided boxes.  These “boxes” were small (my memory says nothing more than a foot in any one dimension).  The depth of color was created by a large number of glaze coats applied to the figure, and then meticulously sanded down to smoothness and clarity.  This is supposed to be a very time-consuming process, but the result is beautiful in color, even if the boxes themselves lack the “beauty” of a recognizable functional purpose.  There were some more examples of his work on the floor below.   Included are a series of landscape paintings at sunset, which I enjoyed.  The colors are exaggerated, and the forms are recognizable.  The effect for me was one of emphasis, and I was taken by the way it brought to life the impression of a colorful sunset; the way the colors are seen in my mind’s eye after the sunset disappears – each color is bright and identifiable, the colors enhance the outlines of the things that reflect that color.

We went outside and walked around the garden area.  This area is large enough to house a number of sculptures among the grass and trees.  I am not a fan of the I-beam sculptures, but every such garden must have one, it seems, and this one is no exception.  A grouping of six or so life-size people entitled something like “the Crowd” was intriguing.  A pair of rusted steel panels, inches thick, curved in an arc from side to side, set in such a way as to create a narrowing gap from bottom to top created the illusion of walking into a cave as one passed through the gap between them.  A water fountain is set on the wall near the café.  The water comes out of a dozen same-size holes drilled in marble set at the same height above the pond.  A set of human shapes in rows, with no heads but dressed for rain provided an interesting grouping.  The shallow pond along the back side of the garden was soothing, and the regularly spaced foot-high fountains added energy, but in a soothing way.

We bought a lunch in the cafeteria (very good sandwich and chips) and sat out on the back patio overlooking the garden to eat it.  Definitely worth the visit.

Afterwards, we walked to the Dallas Museum of Art, and attempted to take it in in a couple of hours.  It is an eclectic, but interesting collection, housed in a fascinating structure that more or less forced the viewer to see (or more accurately scan) the whole of the exhibits before getting to any particular place or time.  I was enchanted by the furniture (mixed with other paraphernalia) exhibits, with some marvelous pieces dating back to the 1700s and made in the US.  Some great craftsmen existed here, and plied their trades successfully.  There is quite a collection of International art, including South American, Asian, as well as various European and Middle Eastern art.  They have whole rooms set up as one would have seen them in the 1800’s; an interesting peek into how people (with money, of course) would have lived in those times.

We saw a lot, enjoyed it, but left to get ready to see Dave and Linda Letts.  Linda had invited Charlotte and Barbara, two good friends to come along, and we met at an Arlington Middle Eastern food place, where Dave thought we could enjoy the food, and sit and talk.  We did, the food was very good, and the company was better.  Gwen had a great time with the women, while Dave and I got to catch up.  Dave was kind enough to give me a very nicely done picture of The Audley pub in London; a place we enjoyed on many occasions after our meetings in the Park Ave office.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Friday was another travel day, like Thursday.  We got up early enough to get on the road and head to Dallas area with time to spare when we got there to look at one of the Ft Worth Art Galleries (Kimball), which was having an exhibition of Bernini’s clay models.

The scenery hadn’t changed.  It started out with farm land all around, but after awhile, the scrub brush (like California) appeared (juniper tree variety), and seemed to follow on one side or another all the way into Dallas/Ft Worth.  The towns kept coming one after another about every 8 to 10 miles.  The road we were on, however, maintained its dual highway status, so the speed limit got up to 75 for the most part.   The definition of ‘freeway’ in Texas (and OK, and even in AR) seems to be a little different from what I’m used to in CA and MI.  I’m used to freeway meaning a limited access road, but the roads in TX with the 70 or 75 MPH limits were not limited in access.  There were crossing roads, entrances directly from driveways, entrances and exits that cross lanes of opposing traffic.  (OK, when they cross the opposing traffic, that traffic has a “yield” sign.)

We got to our hotel in Arlington, looked at what was available to do, and found that the Kimball Museum in Ft Worth, with the Bernini exhibit, was open until 8:00 in the evening.  We decided to try to find a good steak ahead of going over, as it was about 4:30.  So, over to Ft Worth we went. The TripAdvisor website indicated that the best steak was at Del Frisco’s, so there is where we went.  What we didn’t know was that this is a gourmet place; but that was all right – we wanted a good Texas steak.  Gwen got the Filet Mignon, and I got Osso Buco; a good choice, but not as good as the Filet!  We got in because we were there before they really opened (at 5:00), and were able to get out of there before 5:45, enabling us to get to the exhibition at about 6:00.

We went into the museum, and I don’t know what Gwen expected, but I was surprised at what we saw.  Bernini was a great 17^th century Italian sculptor, and was responsible for much of the fountain sculptures in Rome.  It is of course not possible for the exhibit to bring over the finished products, so they did the next best thing – showing the clay models still extant made by Bernini to show his customers what he was planning, and in their refined form, to be used by the sculptors who worked for him to help him translate design into the finished marble product.  The final model, no larger than three feet tall, was measured and expanded to generate the larger than life statues and collections of statues that ended up all over Rome, including St Peter’s, as well as the public fountains.  The exhibit was very well done, enabling me to learn a lot in a short time about the models, the approach Bernini used (he used clay, as well as drawings by the hundreds to develop his ideas, something not all other sculptors do), and to show the unsuccessful ideas as well as the successful ones.

In addition to the tour of this exhibit, we took a brief tour of the other elements of the Kimball’s collection on display, and then came back to the hotel.  We agreed that the Kimball is a great boutique collection.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Travel day from Santa Fe to Lubbock, TX.  This was one of the more boring days of the trip, as the countryside was for the most part not particularly scenic or colorful.  Gone were the great promontories overlooking our drive from the left as we were traveling through.  The land was flat, or almost so, with only the occasional hill to relieve the visual similarity.  The early part of the trip still had some of the junipers in great fields, and, of course, the trains kept us company as we went along, but the junipers gave way to grassy fields with the occasional greenery interwoven in, and the fields became farms.

Most of this trip was through New Mexico, although the last 88 miles were through Texas.  One thing that really struck me was that almost as soon as we got into Texas, just beyond Clovis, NM, the ranches / farms immediately were all dominated by the huge above-ground extended irrigation pipes set up triangular supports.  Each support had wheels at their bases to enable the whole to move across the fields. These structures were not part of the landscape in NM, but once in TX, there was not any point in time where at least one wasn’t visible, or so it seemed.

The towns are located at regular distances from each other, once we got into Texas.  We travelled on the US 84, not the interstate (I40), as it was quicker and while the road was not divided highway, it had a 65 MPH speed limit on it, and the distance was considerably shortened by using these roads.  While I am mentioning speed limits, AZ and NM have 75 MPH limits on their divided highways, without seeming to differentiate for trucks.  Thus trucks sped along at a great rate.  Texas seems to continue that policy, but their top speed appears to be 70 MPH, like California’s.

We got to Lubbock, and after getting a late lunch, we decided to go see the Buddy Holly museum.  It is a very nicely set-up museum, and described with relevant paraphernalia on exhibit the life and impact of Buddy Holly.  It was interestingly done, with description, and almost a day-for-day record of Buddy’s activities in his professional music life.  It was a very short one professionally (18 months from the signing with Decca records to his untimely death in an airplane crash), but he was a musician / songwriter from a very young age.  The thing I didn’t know about his history was the impact he had on those who followed him.  The museum makes it clear that the approach to rock music that followed was heavily influenced by him.  Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, among others all spoke about how the way he handled his guitar, and the way his songs were structured, as well as the way his group (the Crickets) handled the music was so striking that they emulated it in their initial music.  Buddy and the Crickets did tours in England and Australia, which solidified their international reputation, and enabled those who came after to watch him in action.

We came back to a suite at the Holiday Inn Express here, and have been enjoying ourselves trying to figure out what we will see in Dallas/Fort Worth tomorrow and Saturday!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Today is Santa Fe day.  We visited the Museum of International Folk Art (on Museum Hill), saw the oldest Church in the continental US, and walked around the central town square area, where we got our lunch.

The Museum of International Folk Art is different from what I usually expect in a museum.  They have picked a few themes, and have dedicated a wing to each.  Today, they have a wing devoted to HIV/AIDS education (with a lot of expected participation aspects), a wing with exhibits concerning the culinary aspects of living in NM through the years, especially ideas, equipment, furniture and utensils related to cooking, chocolate, and a drink popular in South America called Yerbe Mate and two wings which is focused on international folk art.

The HIV/AIDS exhibit was OK, but didn’t excite me much.  There is a lot to learn here, but an exhibit focused on drawing attention to the issue is not something I need to spend time on.  The culinary exhibit, on the other hand, really got my interest.  Basically, the aspect that caught my attention relates to the history of the culinary dishes, and how this has changed with major events in the world’s history.  A point they make right in the beginning is that many of the products we take for granted now were sourced in the Americas, many were sourced in Europe, and many in Asia, Africa, and the Near East.  This eventually was (at least partially) the impetus for much of the world trade in foodstuffs even right up to today.  We know about the obvious ones – tobacco from the Americas went to Europe as a result of the discovery of the Americas by Columbus, along with tubers like potatoes, squash, and others, avocados, corn, and so on.  Europe provided beef, and other resources to the Americas, while Asia was the traditional source of spices.  Chiles came from the Americas, as did chocolate.   Tea came from China originally; coffee is from the Near East.  In the centuries after Columbus, a brisk trade developed from Europe to Central America to Asia, and back, moving lots of these commodities back and forth.  It also opened opportunities for the development of new types of foodstuffs, combining these items into dishes that brought out the best from each ingredient.

One of several model villages

Various people’s conception of our national symbol

Locomotion devices

Polish Christmas story settings

The international folk art wing contained two exhibits we saw.  First was a variety of quilts by Amish societies around the US, made from the early 1800s to modern day.  These quilts were based on patterns established by the families, and in most cases were geometric in basis.  (Tessellations come to mind in thinking about them now.)  They represent a great deal of work, and in most cases exceeding skill in making them.  They come in sizes from doll-crib to adult bed size.  The other exhibit takes up an entire gallery, and is named for the major donor, Alexander and Susan Gerard.  They started out collecting folk art in the 1930s, and when they came to Santa Fe, they became very interested in the museum, donating much of their extensive collection to the museum in the early 1970s.  At that point, their contributions effectively quadrupled the size of the museum’s collection.  Alexander Gerard, who was an interior and textile designer of considerable repute, had grown up in Italy with an Italian father and American mother, educated in architecture in Rome, and practiced in Florence and New York before coming to Santa Fe.  The exhibit, set up by Mr. Gerard himself in the 1980s shows off more than 10,000 of the items, but the total collection consists of over 100,000 items.  Some of the highlights: US flags of various sizes, with various ways of depicting the stars in their area of the flag against the strips; a collection of model transportation items (cars, buses, trains, carts, etc.); Polish Christmas scenes with multistory toy castles with shiny aluminum fronts used as stages around Christmas time to enable the playing of various Christmas-like stories; street scenes of various originations showing markets and people milling in those markets; stitchery practice, where youngsters would stitch alphabets in a variety of calligraphic patterns (fonts); river front scenes made up of a variety of dolls, boats, and buildings set on wooden blocks serving as elevation delimiters; and a fascinating sectioned-off area where many religious (Christian) folk art were shown.  Fascinating stuff.  Lessons from this exhibition – folk art is not art in its most perfect form, but art indicative of individual skills at trying to convey a message, or create something functional.  There’s hope for my painting yet!  Another lesson: exhibits with lots of words rather than being organized to bring their message across visually are apt to be lost in the words.  It was a fun exhibit, with lots to learn, and lots to see.  Another aspect: you don’t have to like all of folk art to like some of it.  You don’t have to like folk art to acknowledge its value in telling a story or capturing history.

San Miguel Chapel, oldest chapel in US

From the International Folk Art Museum, we went to the downtown (old town) area of Santa Fe.  Our first visit there was to the oldest church in the US. a Spanish colonial mission church built between approximately 1610 and 1626.  Though the church has been repaired and rebuilt numerous times over the years, its original adobe walls are still largely intact despite having been hidden by later additions.  At the front of the chapel is a plexiglass-covered cut-out in the floor enabling the viewer to see the original 1610 foundation, as well as footings for an Indian dwelling that has been dated to 1300.  A bell looking to be half the size of the Liberty Bell sits in the back of the church for people to ring as desired.

Stairway in Loretto Chapel

Right next to the chapel is a building claimed to be the oldest residential building in the US, built around the same time as the chapel.  Unfortunately the docent was not there, so we didn’t get to see inside.  We walked down the road from there, and happened upon another building related to the Catholic religion — the Loretto Chapel.  This one, built between 1873 and 1878, was originally home to an order of nuns.  The item of interest in this chapel is the circular stairway built to enable the sisters to gain access to the choir loft at the rear of the chapel.  The stairway confounds architects, engineers and master craftsmen to this day.  It makes over two complete 360-degree turns, stands 20’ tall and has no center support.  It rests solely on its base and against the choir loft. The risers of the 33 steps are all of the same height.  Made of an apparently extinct wood species, it was constructed with only square wooden pegs without glue or nails.

My understanding of the story is that after the chapel was built, the sisters realized that the ladder to get to the balcony was inconvenient and hazardous.  Just as the nuns were looking for help with this project, a young carpenter showed up looking for work.  The circular staircase was completed in about six months time, in any case, before 1883.  The young carpenter then packed his tools and left, collecting money neither for his time nor for the cost of the wood.  The banisters were added in 1887, although the carpenter this time was paid for his skillful work.  The chapel was eventually determined to be redundant to the needs of the nuns, and eventually was sold into private hands (in 1971).   It is still used for weddings and other appropriate occasions.

Cathedral Basilica of St Francis

After an interesting lunch in a French café (featuring crepes) in the old-town area, we walked to the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis, consecrated in 1886.  This is a much larger structure than the others, and is still a going concern.  It was designated a Basilica in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI for its role as the “cradle of Catholicism” in the Southwest US.

A short walk from there took us back to our hotel.  This place is a boutique hotel (the Inn on Alameda) right in the heart of Santa Fe, and was a great find on Gwen’s part.  It served wine daily at 4:00, along with veggies and dip, and thus enabled us to eat our big meal at breakfast and lunch and to just gobble their free-by’s at dinnertime.  Their breakfasts were quite good, and included, in addition to the usual fare, quiches and other more exotic egg dishes.  It was sad to only spend two days there, but we’ll be back, I suspect!

Tuesday March 26, 2013

Cut and polished petrified log in the Rainbow Forest Museum

Today was a driving day – the objective: to get from Flagstaff, AZ to Sante Fe, NM.  Again, mostly driving the I40.  Part way across Arizona, we discovered the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.  Wow – what a discovery!  Per the travel websites Gwen likes, we cut off of the I40 early, and drove the 20 miles down the US 180 to the southern end of the Park.  Turning left into the park, the first thing we came upon was the first of three Ranger Stations.  This one, the Rainbow Forest Museum, has a very well-done exhibition of dinosaurs and other bones found in the park.  It also had an explanatory video showing the history of the place as currently understood.

Behind the museum is a field of petrified logs, with concrete pathways to follow.  We took a circular path of about a quarter mile and passed by quite a few multi-colored logs strewn in no pattern to be discerned.  I’ve seen petrified wood before, but never in such quantify, and in such colorful variety.  Large logs as big around as Gwen down to small chips of rock hued in dark reds, purples, yellows, whites, and grays.  Some were very long, along the path, some sitting on end.  We later were to learn that the colors are determined by the chemistry of the silica crystals that replaced the wood fibers.  From the handout booklet, “Petrified wood’s varied colors came from minerals in the silica-saturated waters.  Iron, carbon, manganese, and sometimes cobalt and chromium produced patterns and blends of yellow, red, black, blue, brown, white and pink.”  Really beautiful patterns of all kinds, but all obviously following the original wood structure.

The TeePees

We carried on into the park, driving by hills that are colorfully striated: red, white, and a variety of browns and grays.  We thought this was the Painted Desert, and it certainly is related.  Turnouts are provided in several places, and we took advantage of most of them.  One of the first was on the edge of another field of petrified wood logs.  Lots to see in all directions.

I took plenty of pictures as Gwen drove through the park.  The other aspects of interest included human habitation, the petroglyphs, and lastly, the designated Painted Desert.  There is ample evidence of human habitation, dated first from the 1100’s, and then from the 1300’s, but when the Spanish explorers came through in the 1540’s, human habitation had disappeared. 

The remnants were building foundations, which showed small rooms around a central court.  Nearby are rocks with black areas that have been chipped out into petroglyphs.  While not obviously identified, the petroglyphs indicate that the inhabitants were hunters as well as farmers.

There is a rock which is called “Newspaper Rock” where the petroglyphs are numerous in a reasonably small spot.  The park service does not let you near it, but instead have provided a platform above with fixed binoculars to allow viewing.  Thankfully I have my telephoto lens with me!

We kept going, and once we had passed over the I40, there were several turnouts that showed various perspectives on the Painted Desert.  What spectacular views!  The colors were the same as in the petrified forest, but were created by the washing to various levels of the layers of sediment.  You’ve got to see the pictures.  The sun was hidden behind clouds, unfortunately, as I suspect the colors would be even more spectacular were the sun available to highlight and contrast.  The sun also creates shadows, which give added depth to the scene.

One of the last stops was the old hotel.  Built in the 1890s, and then rebuilt twice, once during the depression using CCC personnel and funding, and the last time in the 1950s, the hotel is in the pueblo style, and is clearly intended to be a site for conferences to take place.  Unfortunately, the building is not suitable for habitation any more, so it is only open for us tourists to take pictures and to go around to the back and view the Bad Lands of the Painted Desert.

Entering New Mexico

After that, we went through the exit to the park, and headed out to Santa Fe.  About 75 miles later, we stopped off in Gallup, NM and ate lunch at the local Applebee’s.   The trip through New Mexico was more scenic than even Arizona had been.  On the left hand side for most of the way, were one–after-another peninsulas of higher land, like we were driving through the bottom of a long valley, with the cliffs of the shoreline 1000 feet above jutting out towards us, or occasionally showing us faces which paralleled our progress.  Just like the Painted Desert, the weathered cliff faces showed various strata, colored in a variety of pinks, grays, browns and reds running along horizontally with us.

Slowly these cliffs receded, and as we turned north (from the I40 to the I25), they disappeared.  But they provided such a variety of landscape that driving didn’t feel boring at all.  Running along parallel to us, and usually between us and the cliffs are railroad tracks, and we saw a number of trains, sometimes close up to us, and sometimes far, far away – once so small as to seem like they were toy trains that we could pick up at our whim.  The trains were mostly freight of one kind or another; oil tankers in a great line, automobile carriers, but mostly container-car trains.  The trains usually had three engines, but one shorter train we saw had three engines in front and four in back.  We guessed that the engines in back were just being taken to their next job.

We arrived in Santa Fe around 6:30, and without too much difficulty, found our hotel.  This one is the Inn at Alameda, a boutique hotel that is living up to its name.  It is quite well done, and we are enjoying it.