Home with Family - part two

Monday evening to Wednesday morn; we packed it full, if not with activity, then with interesting sharings and last day tasks.  Mom was a trooper, getting us to the Braintree Logan Express at 6:34 a.m. in the dark!  We will certainly miss our loved ones and the New England architecture and scenery, but now it's time to do those autumnal things one does at home as the holidays approach.

The tree outside Mom's sunporch

D.W. Fields Park in Brockton - the Memorial Tower

Looking up

panorama shot 1 of a weir in D.W. Fields Park

There's Jeffery!

Red Fungi

View of the Fuller Craft Museum across one of the ponds in the Park

Another of the several weirs we saw

Another train at another museum - we wondered if it was the same artist

A face plant?

Another interesting facial expression

I thought of our local "found objects artist" George Fluke when I saw this and other pieces by Leo Sewell

Uh oh!  Sara!  It's a duck staring at me!

Jeffery caught a better shot of this Leo Sewell art-ducko creation

Jimi Hendrix?  Jeffery got "in trouble" for being out on this patio, but he got his shot!

One artwork at the Fuller Craft Museum

close-up to show the workmanship

I liked this ceramic Folds piece

This carved feather was nearly see-through due to piercings in it.  The description of it said "Hand-carved white oak endgrain, steam-bent wenge spine, pyrographed and dyed".  Wonder what most of that means.

Hairy body Jewelry

What's in your wallet?

Real human hair skirt

Tea ceremony box

Tea whisks

A really bizarre dress in a really bizarre clothing collection

The cow-heads overlooking the Peaceful Meadows where we treated ourselves to ice cream cones after a day at the museum.

Jeffery makes our travelling lunches for tomorrow's flight home

Me with my donut before we fly

Jeffery reading on the plane

The view out my airplane window in Boston.

We made it safely home.  Long flight to L.A., then a short trip to Sacramento.  Considering we got in Mom's car at 5:30 a.m. EST and sat on our fannies for the next 14 hours (on shuttles, planes, buses and cars) we felt pretty darned good when we pulled up to Tobin.  Real life commenced immediately.

Home with Family - part one

We have traveled to see loved ones in New England, and it's been a fun and interesting journey this trip.  We did more museums than ever, and had some lively and needful conversations as we tried to catch up and share ourselves.  I didn't take as many photos, but still have a camera-full to show you.
So here we go.

Mom puts Jeffery right to work.

Jeffery and I take a kayak ride because the weather is so fine

I too am happy to be on the water.

We went to New Bedford to see the panorama of a 'round the world whaling voyage, but the exhibit had closed.  We did get to see a video of parts of  the huge painted story later, at the Whaling Museum.

Fort Rodman

Art shot of a flower in a window

The Custom House near Johnycake Hill

There's a monkey theme at Freestone's where we ate lunch

A mermaid in a gallery window

Shell trees in another gallery window

At the Whaling Museum, Jeffery was thrilled to find the "Thou Shalt Knot" exhibit of our ancestor, Clifford Ashley's work

The front part of the blue whale skeleton over Mom's head in the Whaling Museum

The blue whale's tail is as long as the entire humpback whale's length.

Steamed Clams at the Lobster Hut in Plymouth

Mom had scallops

A stop by at the Duxbury Art Museum.  One exhibit was photos of Oystermen and women from the local area and from Drake's Bay in California.

A real Louis C. Tiffany window!

One Hundred cement orbs in a waving row

Jeffery restores the sunporch to order after he primed and painted the water-stained wall beneath the windows.

We wended to the Cape of Cod to visit Lucy and Dan, and they took us on an evening wend past this thatched barn.

Lucy photographing lichen

The next morning, we walked through a marsh to the ocean.

White sand and seashore breeze

Beach stairway

The Nature Center where we hiked was raffling this fine kayak

Lucy and Jeffery at the Edward Gorey house and museum.  Super fun place, if a bit weird

There was a scavenger hunt to find all the murders on Gorey's murder alphabet.  This poor lad is George

These coshes reminded me of the knot-work at the Whaling Museum

Lucy visits Atheneums like I visit California Counties, so we were treated to the Redwood Atheneum in Newport R.I.

Here's a view of the interior into the oldest section of the library collection

A chandelier under a skylight

Lardner's Credibility runs for several volumes.  What is Lardner's Crediblity?  Hmmm

Burnet's History of his Own Time.  

Wilson's Navigation resonated with me, and the Art of Dialling made me curious to understand dialling.

This explains Salons - where paintings were hung in great number and artists' fame was made or destroyed.

One etching artist created pictures of patrons' reactions to some of the artworks hung in the Salon.

Here's another.

And one more.

The Children's Museum-Atheneum

The Newport Art Gallery

St. Mary's Cathedral and the Viking Tower

We stopped to see Annie at Becky's BBQ so she could share some hugs with Georgia and Zoey

My first ever apartment - 47 Farewell St. in Newport.  Cheryl and I lived on the 2nd floor.

Looking down the 40 steps on the Cliff Walk

Looking up from the bottom of the 40 steps.

Jeffery and I on the Cliff Walk near my old alma mater

I attended Salve Regina College for 3 semesters

The entry - looking up

Looking up into the first hall; where I sang with my glee club 45 years ago

Lucy and Jeffery in one ballroom

Another opulent room

Mermaid door handles

In front of Salve Regina University (I guess it changed from a college since I went here)

We approach the great mansion The Elms, where we'll do the Servant's Tour

View from the entry, looking up.  Lots of marble makes it super opulent.

Pink Marble urns flank the steps

These glass star blocks are the floor of the Servants' Quarters hall.  They allow the light from the skylights above to shine down to the floor below  into the main house

The servants' bathroom.  Everyone's bath-time was strictly scheduled, and the servants were expected to be CLEAN.

The top of the mansion shows the windows of the servants' level, but a ornate stone facade decorates the outer rampart.

The view from the roof

The boiler room was next to the ice-storage room and the coal storage and furnace rooms

Three large coal burning stoves

The coal storage room was so cool; completely bricked in.

The coal-carts came in via a narrow gauge track

Here's the "roundhouse" for the coal-carts.  It can take a sharp turn and be dumped into the big room near the furnaces, or forward to the boilers, then back out to be refilled.

I ran out of space, so I'll have to add the last days in another post.  As you can see, great enjoyment has been shared copiously.  I'll be back with the rest soon.