I love this photo I caught in Maine at the “Blast from the Past” diner. We were just passing by on our way to Sabbathday Lake and there was a Friday night car show. See what you miss when you use the byways instead of the highways?!
Using the Byways: Photo of the Week
August 12th, 2009 · photo of the week, travel
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4 days, 4 museums, 4 inches of rain
August 6th, 2009 · Art, Site Seeing, travel
It’s taken me more than 4 days to get organized to get this posted! Last week, hubby and I enjoyed four museums in as many days (and I want you to know this isn’t a record as we’ve done this many in one day in Paris!).
First we went over to Williamstown MA to see the Clark Art Museum’s special exhibit on O’Keefe and Dove, then the Williams College Art Museum nearby to enjoy Prendergast in Italy.
We stayed overnight with fellow teachers whose accommodations we found through Educator’s Bed and Breakfast. Next morning, after a delicious breakfast in their home, we joined the bus trip organized by the Clark Art Museum to the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls.
The four feet of water has to do with while we were enjoying the two museums, over four inches of rain fell in yet another exciting day that New England has experienced this summer!  
This picture is of the New Lebanon Race Track that we went by on the way to Saratoga, NY (on a day where the sun came out – rare in this New England summer!).
Then two days later, we enjoyed Hill-Stead’s in Farmington CT collection.  They were having a special tour of their basement
and afterwards we stayed to take in some of the beautiful art there. This picture is of a label in the basement’s wine cellar. None of the wine exists but it was fun to see what would have been served!  (After Hill-Stead we stopped in Bloomfield CT to visit a couple of friends — who made us a delicious lobster dinner!)
We love art if you haven’t guessed it yet!  Looking at and experiencing beautiful things is one of my favorite things to do with my time — I need to do it because although I am creative, I don’t have the skills to produce these types of treasures!  Here’s one of my favorites from our four days:
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Farewell dear Crossbearers
July 27th, 2009 · Musings, Shaker, Site Seeing, travel
As my fellow Seminar attendees know, the title of a Shaker hymn from Hancock ca 1850 which we sang in farewell to one another ’til next we meet.
Sunday morning brought two final presentations for this year’s seminar: Rob Emlen presented “Picturing a Shaker Village: How the public imagined the Shaker Landscape in 1835” and Steve Paterwic “Canterbury Takes the Lead” — both fascinating and interesting. These workshops were held in the upstairs dining room of The Shaker Table, where we also stayed for quite a good lunch (to tell you the truth I thought the brunch food was far superior to what they had served us for two dinners on Friday and Saturday).
Hubby and I stayed another couple of hours to look about the village more and go on the Dwelling tour which we had not managed to squeeze in as yet. We really had to hold a tongue a few times when the tour guide- truely doing her volunteer best — got a few things twisted. On the whole though, she knew her basic stuff. The biggest thing we wished was that she knew a few dates. I think because the Shakers have a long history at Canterbury, it’s important to name dates or you will, as tourist and visitor, assume they “always” did it that way.  It was a short tour and only wish we could have enjoyed it for a longer time.
We then took small roads home as we did not want to get on the local highway with everyone going home on Sunday night — only once the GPS suggested a road and it led to a closed bridge! So we had to reverse direction; but then we got to see a pretty little one lane covered bridge, so worth the detour.
Home late and tired, with mud in the basement from a serious rain storm (yet another) while we were gone.
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A glorious day in the village
July 25th, 2009 · Musings, Shaker
What a busy third day we’ve had! And, best of all, the New England sun came out today!  It ended up quite hot by the afternoon making the afternoon sessions a challenge – not because the speakers weren’t interesting – but because the heat was trying to whisk us to dream land!
After a nice breakfast, we met at Canterbury Village
and split into two groups. One group went on a special textile tour (sorry I can’t tell you much about it) — the other group which hubbie and I joined — went on the hike that took us to 3 of the 8 ponds built by the village in the 1800s as well as the Feast Grounds. It was a beautiful morning, cool but progressively sunnier as we went along. We had to hop, skip and jump quite a bit of mud and water, but what a wonderful hike. 
(Above, you can see the base of the fountain stone at the Feast Grounds)Â After getting back, some one lots of us know took a dip off the end of Boy’s Island (can you guess who it is?)
and we had lunch in the shade.
The afternoon was three sessions:Â Â David Newell on Valentine Rathbun; Vern Squire on The Birth, Life and Death of Olive Branch and Jane Crosthwaite on “From Mary Magdalene to the Belved Elders in the Church at Shirley:Â Bearing for the Dad, Conversations in heaven and the Problem of History.
THe day ended with sore feet, a nice dinner and a lively end of day Trading Session.
A few more views of our morning hike in the woods:
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We make you freely welcome…
July 24th, 2009 · Communal Societies, Musings, Shaker, Site Seeing, travel
Even the chipmunk and the bees 
welcomed us to Canterbury Shaker Village today for the third day of Shaker Seminar.  
We had breakfast at the Great Stone Dwelling at Enfield Shaker Village, then drove to Canterbury where after a delightful lunch, we were split into groups and either explored on our own, toured an exhibit on furniture or took an architectural tour of the laundry building just for our Seminar.  After dinner at The Shaker Table, a “ghost” tour!
It was an active day on our feet,
but we are enjoying, as we always do, many wonderful conversations and discussions with new comers and “old” attendees.
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