A Super Bloom happens when there is plentiful rainfall after years of drought. We missed the last one ten years ago in 2005, but hoped to be able to see one this year in Death Valley, if the rains came as predicted. In September we made reservations for Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley with hopes that March  would be good timing for possible viewing of a super bloom. Timing was perfect. 
South East Entrance to Death Valley via Death Valley Junction

What makes the blooms in Death Valley spectacular is the fact that they come from what had the appearance of a field of rocks with few bushes. Many of the flowers are a foot or more apart so you have to get down and view at a little above ground level to make it more yellow. The contrast of the rock and the flowers is striking.

The Desert Gold wildflowers were blooming in areas that were very rocky and usually have little visible life. 

"​Artist's Drive, Death Valley
A worthwhile loop off the main valley floor road that takes under an hour

A Palette of Color
"More than five million years ago, repeated volcanic eruptions blanketed the landscape, depositing ash and minerals, The volcanic minerals were chemically altered by heat and water, with variable amounts of oxygen and other introduced elements. Chemical analyses have identified a paint pot of elements: iron, aluminum, magnesium, and titanium, but no copper. Some fot he colored minerals here include red hematite and green chlorite. This is truly a natural artist's palette of color splashed across the slope. The time of day, clouds, and the rare rainfall shift the intensity of the colors, making each visit slightly different."

Beatty, Nevada - day trip from Death Valley also included visit to Ash Meadow Wildlife Reserve 

Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada - day trip from Death Valley

http://www.fws.gov/refuge/ash_meadows/ 
The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge is a protected wildlife located in the Amargosa Valley of southern Nye County in southwestern Nevada . It is directly east of Death Valley National Park and is 90 mi west-northwest of Las Vegas.

The refuge was created on June 18, 1984 to protect an extremely rare desert oasis. 

The refuge is a major discharge point for a vast underground aquifer water system, reaching more than 100 mi (160 km) to the northeast. Water-bearing strata come to the surface in more than thirty seeps and springs, providing a rich, complex variety of habitats. 
Virtually all of the water at Ash Meadows is fossil water, believed to have entered the ground water system tens of thousands of years ago.

Devil's Hole is a deep, water-filled limestone cave, perhaps the deepest in North America. Scuba divers descended to a depth of 436 feet without finding the bottom and they believe it is at least 500 feet deep. From core samples taken in the depths of this watery cave, scientists have been able to piece together a 500,000-year history of the earth's climate. ​

Nuwuvi/Newe Perspective
When we go to the mountains, we're supposed to talk to the land ... you stop and let yourself be known to everything and ask to be received in a good way, making everything safe. That you bring goodness, not harm of any sort.

The appreciation of the desert's beauty can be an acquired taste. I remember seeing a Joshua Tree years ago and wondered what the big deal was about. Now I am drawn to the beauty of the high desert and find it one of my favorite places with many things to appreciate. ​

Jumbo Rock Campground, Joshua Tree National Park, CA
Our first camp was Jumbo Rock Campground in Joshua Tree National Park.  Reservations are on a first come basis and it's packed on weekends in the spring and fall so we arrived before noon on a weekday to get a great spot for the entire week.

NOTE - There water and dumpsite ONLY at Black Rock Campground on the edge of the park. This is the only campground has any facilities and cell coverage and it is barely inside the park . There is limited water ranger station as you enter and none inside the park so it is best to come prepared. The cell coverage disappears shortly after you enter the park and go up in elevation. 

I have never experienced such silence as I have in this area. When the wind is not blowing the silence is so dense and complete that it seems to have matter. 

Jumbo Rock Campground is set among large rock formations and has many scenic sites.  We were able to walk directly out of our campsite and explore in several directions so most of our explorations were directly from our campsite or from a trail leading to Skull Rock from our campground. . The GPS on our phones were helpful to find our way back easily  to our camper since we were not on trails. ​

The blooms on the Joshua trees were massive and dense with a velvety butter texture and color. ​

Driving down Highway 5 on the way to Joshua Tree from the Bay Area was great on this beautiful spring day. 

We entered West Virginia shortly after leaving the Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Pennsylvania. It was a wonderful green in some areas seen from the highway, but I was not so sure about some of the industries. 

Then on to Kentucky 

Kentucky Folk Art Center - Morehead State University - We didn't get to see the thousands of pieces in their collection due to building cooling problems, but we did pick up a few things in their great museum store. Apparently they have a noteworthy collection of folk art. 

Highway 70 in Kentucky passed through horse county and the iconic white fences below. 

The highway is also on the Bourbon Trial that passes through many bourbon distilleries. 

Walking issues - Some of you have asked how's the ankle? To be honest, I have spent a bit of time with my swollen foot elevated during the entire trip and in the heat of Portland Maine I reclined for three days trying to recover from simply walking. I was not sure how seeing the museums of Kansas City would work out, but thankfully I managed to limp trough them well enough to enjoy myself. 

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri 

We only saw a few sections of this great museum, but I was greatly impressed! If we were not pushing towards home I could have returned here for a few more days. 

There were great museum curator comments along with the titles on most of the work that I found interesting so included some of these in quotes. 

Ghana, lives and works in Nigeria, Dusasa I, 2007, Created from recycled liquor-bottle tops that have been flattened and stitched together using copper wire. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri 

"In Interior with a Book, Richard Diebenkorn integrates flat, abstract planes of color with more realistic passages suggesting three-dimensional space. The right two-thirds of the canvas present a landscape, sky and interior space configured as a pattern of horizontal bands of color. Perspective or the illusion of receding space is achieved through the intersection of these horizontals with the diagonal lines of the window frame. The careful placement of a chair, book and trees completes this illusion of depth. 

The empty chair and open book suggests the absence or eventual presence of a solitary figure, creating a quiet mood of anticipation."

"The sweeping gestural brushstrokes and dramatic black and white contrasts seen in in Turin characterize Franz Kline's mature work. His goal was to create a dynamic equilibrium through asymmetry and the interaction of black and white. Close looking reveals that upon a white ground, black and white paint have been applied to the surface in equal importance. Kline used commercial house paints and brushes as large as five inches wide to create these emphatic gestures.

Named after a city in northern Italy, Turin evokes both architectural structures such as bridges and grinders and the surging of energy of the metropolis."

Sam Francis - "Loosely painted in red, purple and black, punctuated by luminous flashes of bright yellow, Untitled gives voice to the dynamism of the soul in action. The drips and splashes, dry-brushed area, and soft-edges pigments saturating the paper record the motion of the artist's brush and express both the tension and release. Typical of his work from the late 1950's Francis leaves more than half of the painting essentially white. These "open" spaces may represent sudden enlightenment, a reflection of the artist's engagement with Zen Buddhism."

"In Woman IV, a figural form, frontal and iconic, fills the surface of the canvas. The woman had enormous arms and breasts, bulging eyes and appears to either grin or grimace. Painted in intense and garish colors, she shifts, reassembles and merges into a field of painterly brushstrokes. Dramatic brushwork, overpainting, scrapes and scrumbles create a myriad of layered effect that set the canvas in motion and record the dynamic painting process. 

De Kooning identified the complex fusion of references present in Woman IV: ancient fertility goddesses, Mesopotamian idols, Venus, the traditional female nude, contemporary women, the pin-up of the early 1950's and even abstract forms of nature. 

Fully aware of the ambiguity of form and the content in his paintings, he observed: "Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash." De Kooning's Woman IV. like the others in this series, is not definitively interpreted. Instead, it remains open, inviting speculation, while suggesting the artist's intense engagement with the concept of woman."

"Cornfield of Health II expresses Arshile Gorky's poetic understanding of nature's organic, undulating forms and varied colors. The painting was inspired by the artist's experiences at this wife's family farm. There he looked deeply into the grassy fields as if you magnify nature in all its lush detail. "That is my goal,"Gorky said, "to achieve fluidity, motion, warmth and the pulsation of nature as it throbs."

A liquidity of paint, rich colors and delicate black lines enliven the softly brushed forms in Cornfield Of Health II. Just below the center and to the right floats an ovoid of yellow with a blue and black center. A signature motif in Gorky's work, this shape recalls a cell and its nucleus, thus evoking the eternal flux of life."

"Pink and Indian Red was created in the first of Adolph Gottlieb's mature styles: the Pictographs. During this period, Gottlieb and many of his fellow painters responded to Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung's notions about archetypal images and the collective unconscious. The simple, archetypal forms in this painting are related to those found on prehistoric cave walls, in African and Oceanic art, In American Indian art and in the art of ancient Egypt and Assyria. They underscore Jung's idea fthat all cultures share an intuitive vocabulary of fundamental forms and symbols. The painting's rich, early palette, primal forms, loose grid and shallow space make it as a key work within mythmaking phase of Abstract Expressionism."

"The French symbolist poetry of Stephane Mallarme and Charles Baudelarie often inspired William Baziote's favorite poems, Baudelarie wrote, "you shall love what I love and that by which I am loved: water and clouds, night and silence, the vast green seas." A comparable mystery can be felt in Baziote's painting. Here, the crescent boon confronts a seahorse-like creature floating in a mottled, vaporous realm of sea or sky. The two forms appear to be suspended in a silent act of mutual reverence. The delicate line meandering at the top of the canvas may suggest a passage of the soul, the graceful movements of the moon and its companion or lyrical cadence of Baudelaire's poem."

"Neil Welliver was one of America's leading contemporary landscape painters. His painting are as much about the covering of a flat surface with rhythmic shapes as they are about a direct observation of trees, mountains and streams.

The artist sketched from nature in the Maine landscape where he lived and then returned to his studio to produce large-scale painting. Late Squall presents a grand view of Mount Megunticook in winter. It revels Welliver's interest in capturing the fleeting, ephemeral quality fo light and pervasive mood."

Tracer is one of the 79 silkscreened paintings Robert Rauschenberg produced between 1963 and 1964, whose imagery is derived from everyday information -- photographs, newspapers and magazines. Tracer alludes to the Vietnam War Incorporating American symbols of war and patriotism. Rauschenberg is considered a pivotl figure in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. He unites the disparate imagery of Pop with the bold brushwork of Abstract Expressionism. 

The beauty of this painting is Marion Bloch, for whom, with her husband, Henry, the Bloch Building is named. According to Mr. Bloch, the couple engaged Andy Warhol's services and took a suite in New York's elegant Pierre Hotel. The artist arrived, not with paints and brushes, but with a Polaroid instant camera. To their surprise, he photographed Marion against a blank wall in the bedroom and departed. Back in the studio, Warhol selelcted one image of Marion, expanded its scale and photo-silkscreened the portrait on canvas. 

Wayne Thiebaud - Starboat (Tugboat and Riverboat) is painted with Thiebaud's  characteristic sensuous colors and thick impasto. The boat and its reflections are rendered with delicate brush strokes. See the sky boldly defined by a yellow and green horizon line, are laid out in broad swatches with a palette knife. While Thiebaud's work has been associated with Pop art because of its focus on the everyday objects of popular culture, he sees it as a part of a long realist tradition."

Pop Art - Pop Art has never been on my favorites list. Although I lived during its era of popularity, I felt it was fun but often flat and often very formulaic in its execution.  Andy Wahol and Wayne Thiebaud can create work that has a painterly quality that often appeals to me . The work on the wall below leaves me cold. 

Clytie Alexander - "Hear the drumbeats of Indian classical music. Imagine the patterned walls of Muslim architecture. Feel the heat of California's Mojave Desert and the coolness of engineered systems. These are the artist's experiences that influenced this work. Painted on a rectangular aluminum panel perforated by a dense grid of drill-pressed holes. Diaphan 15 is hung several inches from the wall. Light passing through the holes bounces off the wall and reflects the panel's vivid orange hue."

"What do you think is hatching inside Subodh Gupta's Egg - could it be a new India? Gupta transforms everyday objects into artworks that critique and challenge our understanding of contemporary Indian life. Egg is made from Humble materials, the cooking and serving wares used in millions of Indian homes. The egg has many meaning in India, from fertility and nourishment to it ancient religious symbolism as the Brahnamda (Cosmic Egg), from which the universe emerged."

"Susan Rothenberg is one of several artist who helped reestablish figurative painting in the wake of Minimalist abstraction. Against the hard-edge, geometric approach of Minimalism, Rothenberg and others reinvested the image with the emotion of the human condition. The sooty palette, elemental forms and flickering surfaces of Endless express a somber yet dynamic vision. 

In Endless, Rothenberg depicts an inverted figure tumbling in an ambiguous, painterly space. The figure is the artist herself- tentative and vulnerable, fragmented and floating. The figure is also every person struggling physically and psychologically  to live in the world. Rothenberg has said, "I want life to be the journey that gets you to the realest place in your psyche. That's what you should be able to paint." 

New Works by Tom Price 

"Presence and absence. The words imply opposite state of being. Something or someone is either present or absent. But can these two contradictory conditions occur at the same time?

In a new body of work, English artist Tom Price explores this theme. What appears to be present may actually represent absence, while the reverse is also true. The hollow bodies made of coal, record a person, but the person is not here. Small disks and vine-like forms that seen to float in the resin are crack and void.

In his rok, Price investigates new uses for typically industrial materials. using coal. a form of carbon, one the basic building blocks of our universe. Price casts life-sized bodies and geometric voids. A more modern substance, resin is pushed to a past it's limits, creating fractures and melting globs of tar. 

By using unusual material, yet in recognizable and simpler forms, Price ask us to look at the world with fresh eyes. We consider our relationship to the environment and the presence of the now and the absence of the past and the future."

Isamu Noguchi Sculpture Court - The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri 

It is my desire to view nature through nature's eyes...to truly become...a part of the very earth, thus to view the inner surfaces and the life elements. 
                                                                                     ---Isamu Noguchi

Isamu Noguchi was one the most innovative artists fo the 20th century. He made drawings, ceramics, photographs and sculptures. He designed chess sets, stage sets, furniture, lights, gardens and urban playscapes. His collaborations with creators such as the visionary architect Buckminster Fuller and the pioneering dancer Martha Graham are legendary. The unifying thread in all of these endeavors is Noguchi's devotion to nature --nature as origin, fact, material and mystery--and our place in it.

Noguchi was born in Los Angeles in 1904. His American mother was a writer and editor, while his Japanese father was a poet. he spent his childhood in Japan, his youth in the United States, his maturity in New York and Europe and much of his later life in Japan."

LOVE, LOVE his work!

Noguchi made both ancient and modern sensibilities his own as he touched the life of nature and the nature of life. The sculptures in Noguchi Court speak of the body (Avatar and Endless Coupling), the world (Mountain Landscape (behcn) and Night Land). life-giving water (Fountain) and the cosmos (Energy Void and Ends). Although he worked in several materials, stone was the closest to his heart. His intent was not to impose his voice upon the stone, but to let the stone speak."

The Plains Indians - Artists of the Earth and Sky - great exhibition from the Plains Indians

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri 

Wow! What an incredible exhibit! I have not seen so much art from the Plains Indians at one time and I was impressed greatly with their ceremonial clothing and beadwork especially. This work was left me nearly speechless with awe. 

Most Famous of All Plains Indian Sculptures
"This carving depicts a lunging horse in its last moment of life, and the red triangles represent the animal's bleeding wounds. Successful warriors danced with such objects in performances honoring horses wounded or killed in battle. Renowned artist and veteran warrior Joseph No Two Horns (1852-1942) is believed to have created this work, possibly with help from another carver."

"Red Cloud Owned this Headdress - According to documentation from 1882, the great Lakota chief Red Cloud owned this headdress. Each eagle tail feather represents a distinct honor earned in war. Together they symbolize bravery, political stand, and leadership. Eagle feather headdresses with long trailers are among the most spectacular objects of Plains ceremonial regalia. They transformed a warrior on horseback into a bird in flight."

"Red Cloud was photographed in this Scalp Shirt - Red Cloud, one of the most famous Lakota chiefs, was photographed in this garment called a scalp shirt. The fringe of human hair symbolized brave deeds and also represented the people of the tribe whose safety the wearer pledged to protect. Small patches of glass trade beads on the dark-blue painted panel allude to stars in the night sky. Many remember Chief Red Cloud for his bravery as a warrior and also his great abilities as a statesman."

The Powerful Buffalo
"This sculpture portrays the buffalo as a symbol of reproduction. It also celebrates the animal's physical strength. Straddling a ridged phallus, the bull is rooted to the ground. The monumental animal looks straight ahead with nostrils flaring. Its stance is one of might and potency. From the time Cheyenne people migrated onto the Plains, they considered the buffalo a sacred relative. The regeneration of the herds was central to the tribe's physical and cultural survival."

"This man's shirt is constructed mostly of trade materials. Hudson's Bay red woolen cloth forms the body, and European glass beads embroider the ornamental stripes. Still the shirt remains open at the side, like animal skin war shirts. The beaded rosettes continue to symbolize the sun and moon. The profuse use of weasel fur fringes indicated a proven war veteran wore the garment."

Favored One-Piece Boots 
Southern Plains women favored one-piece boots over a combination of moccasins and leggings. They wore these with painted-hide and later, trade-cloth dresses. The blue and green stained leather serves as a striking background for beadwork and rows of metal buttons. The complex linear, box-like designs on the top fo the moccasins contrast with the running triangular and rectangular bands. 

Bring Back Old Way of Life
Followers of the Ghose Dance religion created this sacred dress to wear to ceremonies. Spiritual visions inspired the images on the garment. Earlier Arapahoe traditions also informed the symbols. Turtle represent the earth. Eagles, magpies and crows serve as messenger to the heavens. The Ghost Dance spread across the Plains in 1889-1890. Believers thought it would bring back the old way of life."

Like a Women's Belt Set
"All of the elements of a Plains women's belt set are present in this little girl's fancy ensemble. Hanging from the belt, studded with German silver conchos, are three strike-a-light bags (for flint and steel or government ration cards), a pouch, and various tool cases. Charms for protection add special meaning -- a diamond shaped amulet, deer tails, a wooden bead, and two shells. Metal cones on four ornaments provided a jingling sound."

Part of Religious Movement - "This garment created in the late 1800's was part of a religious movement called Faw Faw. It advocated a return to traditional Native ways. Beaded images of horses, human figures, buffalo skulls, and cedar trees relate to the belief. Other images such as hands and horned panthers link to older spiritual concepts and mythology. American flags may symbolize power. Otoe-Missouria prophet Wa-no-she William Faw Faw) founded the movement. It is based upon a personal vision."

Solid Beading - "Pianist Minnie Sky Arrow reportedly wore this fully beaded dress as a recital gown. The garment features a curving yoke and straight-edge flaring skirt. Beaded designs appear to float on the blue expanse and frame both the yoke and skirt. Included are what might be stars, clouds, and supernatural beings. During early reservations times, solid beading of clothing and other objects became popular. This dress was created at the height of the style."

From a Dream - "The artist dreamed this horse mask. Her recollection follows: "The designs were very vivid. I immediately sketched out what I had seen, and I had a very strong feeling that this piece had to be made. When things come to me like this, I really try my best to make them like I saw them, to honor the design. Sometimes the meanings are unclear to when I am working, but later make sense."

We were on the third floor looking at the Chinese temple when we heard the drumbeats, chants and singing from the main lobby where the Indians were dancing.


It was a great way to end our tour of the building and its exhibits. 

Art as Poetic Motion - "The ideal way to experience Jesus Rafael Soto's shadow-box construction is to walk by it. You'll notice that Eciture, N.Y. (Writing, New York) vibrates and shimmers, which speaks to the dynamism of contemporary life and the space/time continuum of modern physics. The fine, black vertical rods establish a rhythmic constant, while the eccentric alphabetic lines dance and shift. They are not meant to be read but experienced as poetic motion."

We loved this one!!

The Chinese Temple - The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri 
 Installed in the early 1930's, this gallery recreates a setting typical of a Chinese Buddhist temple. The ceiling panels and central coffier vault come from the Zhihua temple in Beijing, built in the 15th century at the order of Wang Zhen, a powerful eunuch at the imperial Ming court. The glory of his temple lies in its star-shaped coffiered vault, an ancient architectural form referred to int Chinese as the "ornamental well." As with all traditional Chinese architecture, it is constructed entirely without nails using intricate mortise-and-tenon joinery. The panels on either side of the vault are inscribed with Buddhist  mantras in Sanskritic script. The door panels with their latticed windows originally inlaid with paper come from their residence of a high official but are also typical of temple architecture. The columns and lintels are 1930's reconstructions faithfully imitating Chinese architecture and coated in vermillion paint imported specially from China. The mural and sculptures come from other locations and date between 12th and 15th centuries. 

Kansas City, Missouri has some great old architecture 

Our good friends, Mike and Mieko - We made plans to visit our friends at their booth at the 81st year of art fair in Kansas City. It was a great show and always a treat to see them. Later we all met up for a great meal at a local restaurant. 

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri 

A small museum, but worth the trek up the hill to see it and the art inside. 

Kansas City has the American Jazz Museum on the famous corner of 18th and Vine

 Prairie Museum of Art and History, Colby, Kansas 

Rules for Teachers 1872
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps and clean chimneys. 


2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's sessions. 


3. Make your pens carefully you may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils. 


4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.


5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.


6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed. 


7. Every teacher should lay aside from each day a goodly sum of his earnings for the benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society. 


8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barbershop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity or honesty.


9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves. 

Daniel Sprick's Fictions - These paintings seem to come alive with the souls of the people. I've never seen anything like these works. I loved the way the works are loose and sketchy at the perimeters as if the person is rising from some mist or possibly chaos. 


 "Colorado artist Daniel Sprick is known as one of American's finest painters working today in a realist tradition. But what is it that makes his work compelling?"

It may be that despite how "real" they look, these paintings are in fact fictions. Slow looking helps us recognize that each is a result of his skill as a painter -- how he poses his subjects, how he employs a multiplicity of techniques from deft transparencies to think impasto to messy scrumbling, how he creates an atmospheric glow -- joined with his poetic intentions. 

As Sprick himself says, "Expression is the whole purpose. Otherwise, you can do really technically correct artwork that is lifeless. I want to express the level of emotion that is meaningful to other people besides myself." Timothy J. Standring, Gates Foundation Curator of Painting & Sculpture

Western Art - Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado 

Maynard Dixon - "On this decorative screen, Maynard Dixon simplified a mountain into its basic angles and used only two colors" orange for the light and dark blue for the shadows. Although European artists Pablo Picasso and Geroges Braque had invented cubism about 15 years before, when Dixon painted this screen it was an early example of cubism in the American West."

Artist's Eye/Artist's Hand Celebrating American Indian Art at Denver Art Museum, 

Michaele Keyes - Skyline and Change of MInd
'This series started off with a few simple ideas. I work intuitively and without thought of a completed piece. My style is not realistic, but the notion or impression of the city skyline was in mind. 

I have been observing Denver's skyline since 1965 when there were tall building downtown. It has, of course, changed over the years. 

I wanted to try to simplify my work -- less color and wildfire. 

I started with black and the skyline, changed my mind and added the red and yellow eventually. There are some pieces that resemble the forest "skyline" and some the city. It is just what happened. My art has a mind all of its own.'    ----- Michaele Keyes  2014

Skylite Station - a live performance venue and gallery 

Abecedarian Gallery 
The Reading Room - A Place for Artists Books 

This gallery has some interesting work, but it was difficult to photograph. They have a good selection of Coptically Bound Books. 

Leaving Denver and heading west on Highway 70 towards Utah

Nevada along Highway 50 - The Loneliest Highway in America 

Nitty Gritty Details 


We drove over 22,000 miles in 178 days. 

Overnighting in Parking lots - We stayed overnight in parking lots for a total of 61 nights (178 days in the trip) and we easily saved thousands of dollars on camping fees. Unfortunately, the best parking lots were the Walmarts in Canada with their fast free Wifi (no free Wifi in USA). Before this trip I had avoided Walmart due to their employee policies, so it was a stretch in the beginning before we realized they were most often the only choice and the safest place to stay. In a parking lot there is never mud, we can usually find a level spot and usually services are close by. Often big stores have a large grassy area where the dogs can run off leash. On the downside they are often noisy in the early morning hours with sweepers and the night shift shuffle and chatter, but we still found them to be a good option. Much to our surprise sometimes the campgrounds were extremely noisy and worse than any parking lot! To find free places to stay we used the website http://www.overnightrvparking.com/ 

Hotels - Twice we booked a room in hotel so that we could use their parking lot to sleep in our rig. We did this in Chicago and Niagara Falls where camping was difficult. We used their shower, but actually preferred to sleep in "own bed."


Car repairs - we had a few car repairs including a rip-off oil change up for $170 in D.C. While in Nebraska at the beginning of the trip we had a serious freeze that caused some issue with our fresh water pipes. We had several service people look at it, but no one wanted to do the work to replace it since it was going to take ten days to get replacement parts from the factory. We tried while in Quebec for a long period, but they didn't speak English well and were unwilling to do the job. Everyone just tried to talk us out of getting it done and would think of new ways for us to use it as is. The problem got worse as  the trip progressed and we ended the trip only being able use about 5 gallons of our 35 gallons of water since the tanks would not fill or pump properly. We bought several gallon jugs of water that we kept in our tiny bathroom. Beside the water issues the rig ran very well. Now that we are home we will get it fixed at Roadtrek dealer. 

Hair cuts - I cut the front of my hair and Tom did the back. Before we left my hair stylist showed Tom how to cut my hair and he did a great job! I cut his as well. We are considering keeping up our "home care" routine. 

Illness - We never got sick the entire trip! We made a point of making sure we got plenty of rest and only had to get up early a few days when we had an early morning tour. 

Food - We mostly prepared out own meals and actually ate quite well. Often the biggest challenge was to find fresh produce. We only ate dinner out 6 times in 6 months, but we did enjoy eating out for lunch often. 

Moods - We never had an argument and weren't even snippy with each other in the small space. We were both happy to be on the road and were very accommodating to each other's needs. 


In the end we felt like we truly knew what it was to live in a van. We are both glad that we made the trip and would like to go again, but probably a shorter trip is next on the agenda. 

Wampanoag Homesite Exhibition - A Native homesite consisted of 2 or 3 coastal acres where a family lived in spring, summer, and fall. In winter families moved inland. 

This exhibit is a re-creation of the home of Hobbamock - a Pokanoket man who lived in Patuxet/Plymouth Colony in the 1620's. Hobbamock and his extended family lived across the brook on the south side of the Pilgrims' town. They were the only Native People known to have lived alongside the Pilgrims. 

Hobbamock was a councilman to Ousamequin, the sachem(leader) known by this title, Assasoit. Hobbamock served as a  liaison between England and Wampanoag. 

17th-Century English Village - Plimouth Plantation  


The 17th-Century English Village is a re-creation of the small farming and maritime community built by the Pilgrims along the shore of Plymouth Harbor. In the Village, the year is 1627, just seven years after the arrival of Mayflower. The Museum selected this year for re-creation because it is well-documented in the historical sources and shows the plantation (a word that was used interchangeably with the word “colony” in the 1600s) just before the colonists began to disperse beyond the walled town and into other parts of what would become southeastern Massachusetts.

The English Village brings colonial Plymouth vividly to life. Here, there are modest timber-framed houses furnished with reproductions of the types of objects that the Pilgrims owned, aromatic kitchen gardens, and heritage breeds livestock. Well informed actors playing townspeople are eager to tell you about their new lives in Plymouth Colony.

Note the dirt floor and unpainted walls with the fine European furniture. These are reproductions of actual pieces that the Pilgrims brought to Plymouth. 

Some homes had fireplaces with chimneys and some had open pits with a hole in the ceiling. They would hang blankets from the rafters to try to keep the smoke in the area by the ceiling hole. 

Mayflower II - "The originalMayflower that sailed to Plymouth in 1620 no longer exists. Plimoth Plantation's full-scale reproduction, Mayflower II, was built in Devon, England and crossed the Atlantic in 1957. The details of the ship, from the solid oak timbers and tarred hemp rigging to the wood and horn lanterns and hand-colored maps, have been carefully re-created to give you a sense of what the original 17th-century vessel was like." 

A new White House Visitors Center opened the day we took the tour. Below is a photo of the virtual tour I was given of the inside. You could click and many items and learn about its history. 

The White House Visitor's Center had many exhibits and display of historical items. 

Speculative Forms 
Drawn from the Hirshhorn's expansive collection, Speculative Forms reconsiders the historical development of sculpture since the early twentieth century and its critique of the autonomy of the object. Including more than fifty works, this exhibition collapses conventional art historical divisions such as figurative vs. abstract; still vs. kinetic; representational vs. simplified geometric; and planar (having modeled or carved surface) vs. stereometric (exposing the internal structure). The objects oscillate between these dichotomies, thus turning one's preconceived notions of sculpture inside out. 

Inspired by the philosophical notion of "Speculative Realism," which emphasizes an equal relationship between subject, object, and space, the exhibition highlights the importance of installation and the viewer's eye and the body in relation to the object. The selected works - ranging from the well-known to the rarely exhibited - challenge the modernist notion that sculptures exist isolated from their surroundings. The exhibition follows these threads through Surrealism, Constructivism, Assemblage, Ob and Kinetic Art, Minimalism, and Post-Modernism. The materialist and physicality of the sculptures, on one hand, and their more intangible, phenomenological aspects of the other, raise intriguing questions about the potential limited of the perception of objects and the larger world. 

US Capital 

Visitor's Entrance is around the back and through the basement of an adjacent building. After a short mandatory movie we were shuttled from room to room by our group guide. In the two large rotundas there were five or six large groups of people, all with ear phones so they can listen only to their tour guide. 

Congressional was not in session so those rooms were not open for viewing. 

Statues of people were everywhere and they often crowded the perimeter of large rooms. The Hall of Statues in particular is highly populated with larger than life statues. 

National Statuary Hall,  U. S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. - Location for dinners after the Inauguration. 

Alexandria, Virginia - Across the Potomac River from the U. S. Capitol
It is a desired location today just as it was centuries ago. 

George Washington freed his slaves upon his death.  This was done at a time when slaves were often passed on to heirs as property. The question was raised in the museum as to why didn't Washington free them earlier. It stated that it was very complicated time and the families were sometimes broken apart when members of a family were freed and others were still slaves at adjoining plantations. Some people state that George Washington failed to take a stance against slavery during his lifetime although slavery was morally repugnant to him. I am not sure of the precise laws during Washington's period of office, but I understand that Thomas Jefferson was not able to free his slaves due to the restrictive emancipation laws during his lifetime. 

Washington Life Size Recreations - After using a laser to obtain pinpoint measurements of a life mask and bust created by French sculptor Jean Antoine Houdon when Washington was 52 years old, a team of experts worked backwards to create a figure 33 years younger. He is over six feet two inches tall and would have weighed 175 pounds. 

"First Career - Always drawn to adventure, George Washington planned to join the British Navy until his mother refused to let him go. Instead, he embarked on an inland adventure as a surveyor on the Virginia frontier."

Washington began his military career as a major in the service of Virginia. Young, ambitious, fearless, and thoroughly inexperienced, the 20-year-old colonial officer soon found himself at the center of controversy and world war. Despite several major blunders, he emerged a few years later as one of the colonies' first war heroes with a reputation as a natural born leader. 

One of the best horsemen of his age, General Washington took great pride in the horses that carried him throuh the war. He especially favored two: Blueskin, a firey hunter with a blue-grey coat; and Nelson, a chestnut gelding with unshakable nerves. 

Washington as Farmer -  There were over 100 crops at Mount Vernon. Growing tobaco in Virginai took its toll on the soil, often forcing planters to let their fields lie fallow for up to ten years. Many simply abandoned their exhausted fields and developed new farmland. 

Seeing the futility of the practice, Washington set about developing a "system of agriculture" that would provide fertile fields fo high-yielding crops. He replaced tobacco with wheat, experimented with fertilizers, and created an innovative seven-year crop rotation system that successfully maintained the productivity of his fields. 

Washington had many ventures going at Mount Vernon including establishing a series of gristmills and creating a large fishery so he could farm the river. As Mount Vernon grew into an 8,000-acre estate, George Washington sought out new ways to fund the expanding operations. In 1797, he began making whiskey on the advice of his farm manager, James Anderson, a trained distiller from Scotland. 

Washington soon built one of the largest distilleries in America. At its peak, it produced over 11,000 gallons of whiskey and brought in so much money that it became one of his most successful commercial enterprises. 

Arlington Cemetery  - Robert E. Lee's family owned the property that became Arlington Cemetery. 

The cemetery was established during the Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, which had been the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna (Custis) Lee (a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington). 

The government acquired Arlington at a tax sale in 1864 for $26,800, equal to $400,000 today. Mrs. Lee had not appeared in person but rather had sent an agent, attempting to pay the $92.07 in property taxes (equal to $1,400 today) assessed on the estate in a timely manner. The government turned away her agent, refusing to accept the tendered payment. 

In 1874, Custis Lee, heir under his grandfather's will passing the estate in trust to his mother, sued the United States claiming ownership of Arlington. In December, 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Lee's favor in United States v. Lee, deciding that Arlington had been confiscated without due process. After that decision, Congress returned the estate to him, and on March 3, 1883, Custis Lee sold it back to the government for $150,000 (equal to $3,221,364 in 2014) at a signing ceremony with Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln. 

Viet Nam War Memorial

One story that was told to us by the tour guide I had not heard before. He claimed that Maya Linn received a "D" grade from her Yale professor for this design concept. 

Lin's conception was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the gravity of the loss of the soldiers. The design was initially controversial for what was an unconventional and non-traditional design for a war memorial. Opponents of the design also voiced objection because of Lin's Asian heritage. However, the memorial has since become an important pilgrimage site for relatives and friends of the American military casualties in Vietnam, and personal tokens and mementos are left at the wall daily in their memory. In 2007, the American Institute of Architects ranked the memorial #10 on their list of America's Favorite Architecture. 

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater 
Fallingwater or Kaufmann Residence is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, 43 miles (69 km) southeast of Pittsburg. The home was built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run in the Mill Run section of Stewart Township, Fayette, County, Pennsylvania, in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains. 

Time stated after its completion as Wright's "most beautiful job"; it is listed among the Smithsonian's Life List of 28 places "to visit before you die." It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. In 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects named the house the "best all-time work of American architecture" and in 2007, it was ranked twenty-ninth on the list of America's Favorite Architecture according to the AIA.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Kentuck Knob PA, - near Fallingwater

The home is privately owned so interior photos were not allowed. 


At 86, and hard at work on the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Beth Shaolom Synagogue in Elkins park Pennsylvania and about 12 residential homes, Wright said he could “shake it (Kentuck Knob) out of his sleeve at will”, never even setting foot on the site, except for a short visit during the construction phase. This would be one of the last homes to be completed by Wright.

The crescent-shaped house curls around a west-facing courtyard, blending into the contours of the land. The anchor of the design is a hexagonal stone core that rises from the hipped roof at the intersection of the living and bedroom wings. The walls of the flat-roofed carport and studio burrow into the knob and define the courtyard’s eastern side. A stone planter terminates the low retaining wall on the west side of the courtyard, and it features a copper light fixture accented with a triangular-shaped shade. To the south, the house extends beyond the hillside on 10" thick stone-faced concrete ramparts. As with other houses Wright designed during this period, the Kentuck Knob plan is based upon a module system, in this case an equilateral triangle measuring 4'-6" to a side creating an outside 240 degree L-plan house.

From this point we were originally planning to turn south to see Memphis and Nashville, but the weather was hot and uninviting. Then we had some friends email us to suggest that we all meet in Kansas City while they were selling at an art fair there so we headed towards Kansas City instead.

The next and final blog of this series will cover our trip back across the country with the major stops in Kansas City, Denver, Arches and Canyonlands, Utah. 

Portsmouth, NH - a charming historical city 

Tombstone reads "Here lies buried Ye body of Deacon John Longley who departed this life, May Ye 25th AD l750 in Ye 68th year of his age"


I prefer to use the more respectful term of Native People or Native American, however, when quoting I will use the word Indian as in the original quote. 

After viewing the grave we drove one mile north of town on Longley Road to find a large granite bolder that has the following etched on its face:

NEAR THIS SPOT DWELT 

WILLIAM AND DELIVERANCE LONGLEY 

WITH THEIR EIGHT CHILDREN

ON THE 27TH OF JULY 1694

THE INDIANS KILLED 

THE FATHER AND MOTHER

AND FIVE OF THE CHILDREN AND

CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY

THE OTHER THREE 


GROTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1946

 

Just as I knelt to place flowers at this rock marker, a clap of thunder sounded loudly. Shortly after the skies opened and it began to rain. It was the only sound of thunder all day.

Old South Meeting House (built 1729), gained fame as the organizing point for the Boston Tea party on December 16, 1773. 5,000 colonists gathered at the Meeting House, the largest building in Boston at the time. The Old South Meeting House has been an important gathering place for nearly three centuries. Renowned for the protest meetings held here before the American Revolution when the building was termed as a mouth-house. 

Old State House - It is renowned for hosting the first elected legislature in the New World. It dates from 1713 which makes it the oldest public edifice. Today it houses a museum. 

Salem has truly commercialize the witch theme. There were witch museums and witch shops of every possible type. 

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA 

Avanti automobile, 1964, Fiberglass body, Celebrated industrial designer Raymond Loewy designed the Studebaker Avanti, which means “forward” in Italian at his home in Palm Springs, CA. The Avanti’s body is made of figerglass, an industrial plastic reinforced with glass fibers. The lighweight material enabled Loewy to achieve the car’s sleek, seductive and aerodynamic design, a form that also made it fast - the car broke twenty-nine speed records. Equiped with a futuristic grilleless front, the Avanti still symbolizes Southern California’s innovative design and glamour. 

Sophia Peabody painted this pair of paintings as an engagement gift for her fiance, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Having never visited Italy, she drew on published etchings of Lake Como for inspiration. She included depictions of herself and her husband-to-be as small figures in the foreground of each work, an imaginary vision of their future life together. 

The Victorian tradition of sailor’s valentines-intricate souvenirs and token of love made of shells attains a new witty heights in Island Bride. This assemble of found objects and hardware store materials also playfully alludes to the tradition of elaborately embellished bridal gowns and ceremonial garments. 

Japanese Art - The art of Japan conveys a highly developed aesthetic sensibility that is valued worldwide. Art plays an important role in expressing spirituality, affinity with nature and enjoyment of life. Purity of design and extraordinary workmanship are evidenced in Japanese art from Neolithic times to the present. 

In 1714, Lexington selectmen gave John Muzzey permission to keep a “Publique House of Entertainment.” On Sundays townspeople came here for hot flip and a warm fire after sitting hours in the unheated church. 

John Buckman owned this inn during the Revolution. He gave it a new double hip roof to provide more attic bedrooms, obliterating its “saltbox” roof profile. In later years it served as the town post office. 

In the 1830's, depleted uranium oxides were used for coloring glass "canary" yellow. Uranium in glass emits a low, but not harmful, level of radioactivity that is strong enough to be detected by a Geiger counter. Forty percent of glass is composed of lead which absorbs radiation. 

McDermott Glass - We bought a piece of glass from these artists and had the pleasure of meeting them. 

David McDermott is a master glass blower. His work is technically excellent and aesthetically beautiful. David worked with and studied under Robert Mason at Pairpoint Glass. He currently teaches at Corning.

"The list of notable for which he has done commissioned pieces is highly impressive. That list includes Pope John Paul II, the Empress of Japan, Tip O'Neil, the Empress of Portugal, Henry Kissinger, the movie Amistad and numerous television commercial." His work can be seen at Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Tiffany's, Sotheby's, Shreve, Crump & Lowe as well as many galleries."

Hoxie House, Sandwich, MA - (ca. 1675) in Sandwich, Massachusetts is one of the oldest houses on Cape Cod and one of the oldest surviving houses in Massachusetts.The saltbox house was built in the mid-seventeenth century and occupied around 1675 by Rev. John Smith, his wife Susanna and their 13 children. Smith served as pastor of the Separatist First Church of Sandwich church from 1673 until 1689. He also served as a representative to the legislature and recommended tolerance of the Quakers, a religious minority in the area.

The guide in the house stated that the cradle seen in this photo was long so that a child could be kept in the cradle until the age of three. He said that this was done so the mother was able to do all the necessary chores during the busy day. When they outgrew the cradle at age three they were not able to walk since they were kept in it at all times. To remedy this the child was then chained in the corner of the room in a standing position until it could stand and walk. At the age of five the child was put to work in the fields and at home. 

Apparently there are many sayings that came from this early era such as:
Saved by the bell - string in casket attached to bell which is above ground
Raining cats and dogs - cats and dogs would slide off the roof when it rained 
Tie the knot - ropes to support mattress were tied at time of wedding
Turn the tables - table that became chair to avoid taxes for two pieces of furniture
Throw out the baby with the bathwater - baby last to bath in bi-annual family bath water so dark you could loose a child 
Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite - mattresses were stuffed with weeds and often bugs. Sleep tight was from tightening the ropes that supported the mattress.  
Dead as a door nail - nails pounded into the front door for reinforcement were not recycleable

Wing Fort House -  Home of my 8th great grandfather, Stephen Wing (born 1621 Sandwich, Kent, England - died 1710 in Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts). He arrived in Saugus, MA in 1632. I had wanted to see his house for many years.

Wing Fort House is a historic house at Spring Hill Road in East Sandwich, Massachusetts. The house was built in 1641 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The Wing Fort House is recognized as the oldest home in New England continuously owned by the same family. Stephen Wing either purchased the homestead from the town of Sandwich, or the town granted him the property.

The home is currently owned by the Wing Family of America, Inc, an organization of family members. When I contacted the Wing Family of America a few years ago they already had records of my grandmother, Bertha Longley Wright being a descendant so they offered me membership into their organization. 

Plaque at Wing Fort House Reads:


Stephen Wing

Son of the Rev. John and Deborah Wing, came to Boston in 1632 with his mother and brothers John, Daniel, Matthew, with whom he settled in Sandwich in 1637. He lived upon this land and built this house and he was an original member of the First Friend’s Meeting in America established at Spring Hill in 1656 and suffered great persecution at the hands of Plymouth government in the cause of religious liberty. He died in 1710 and lies buried at Spring Hill. 

I leaned from the cultural archeologist (also the caretaker of the Wing home) who gave us a tour of the house that Native Americans lived in a dwelling directly across the street from the Wing home during the time that Stephen Wing lived here. Apparently they were on friendly terms. We were told that the Native Americans have lived in this same location for over 3,000 years so the archeologist is currently working with National Geographic to try to get them to finance an archeological dig in the area where the dwelling was located. Apparently he has worked with National Geographic on other projects and feels confident they will be interested in the dig and would want to publish the findings. He said that there are remants of the original post location on the site which he feels is unique since all of the other Native sites in New England have been disturbed over time. 

All of the contents of the Wing Fort House were owned by members of the Wing family, but not necessarily Stephen Wing. They were given to the Wing Family of America. 

Originally the home was brightly painted inside and out. The inside colors of this room were black and red. The floor was painted in a pattern to look like a rug and all of the furniture was painted and decorated. Over a period of time people stripped the furniture of all of its original paint thinking they were restoring it to the original finish. The same happened to the floor. Only the paint on the back stairs are original. 

Wing family and the early Quakers 
Stephen and his brother Daniel Wing are both my 8th great grandfathers since their grandchildren married each other. 

Daniel Wing was before the Plymouth Court on numerous occasions for refusing to take the oath of fidelity to English government, being fined each time after he had claimed with others of the "friends" that it was unlawful to take any 'oath' at all.  He was also fined on several occasions for refusing to assist the marshal at Sandwich in persecutions of the Quakers. He was once fined five pounds, which, in those days, represented the ordinary earnings of a man for a whole year. 

Both Daniel and Stephen supported the religious freedom of the new Quaker religion and suffered greatly under the Quaker persecution. The constant fines had come to the point where he was afraid of losing his homestead. In order to escape that fate, he had his estate probated during his lifetime and given to his children. Under an old English law a man might be declared legally dead by the courts. This event has caused much confusion to family historians ever since.

The Quaker persecutions ceased by the order of King Charles in 1662, and thereafter Daniel and Stephen Wing, with their fellow Quakers, assumed their old places in the public affairs of the colony, although it was not until 1675 that the town of Sandwich voted to record the names as among those with "just rights and privileges of the town." The Plymouth Court already had restored Daniel's citizenship in 1669 and appointed him as one of two official surveyors of the highways. For the fact that Daniel, in his will made thirty-nine years after his "legal death", left the bulk of his property to his younger children, all born after the episode of 1659, it is inferred that his older children continued to enjoy the fruits of his first acquired estate.

After defending the Quakers both Daniel and Stephen Wing became Quakers. They were very active members at the first Quaker Meeting House in North America. 

Quaker Meeting House, Sandwich, MA - the oldest in America 

The Quaker Meeting House established in 1657, is the oldest continous Quaker meeting house in North America. It consists of congregations in Sandwich, in West Falmouth and in Yarmouth. This meeting house, the third on this site, was built in 1810. 

Cape Cod, MA - Provincetown - Francis Cooke (Cook) - born in Gides Hall, Essex, England, 1583 - died in Plymouth, MA. Mayflower Passenger - my 9th great grandfather

I knew about this relation who was a Mayflower passenger for many years. I was not aware of the many Cook descendants who resided in Provincetown until I saw the displays at the Provincetown Museum. I was quite surprised to see that many of the Cooks remained in the area and “played a prominent role in Provincetown’s whaling fortunes and subsequently the town’s fortunes.”

Portland, Maine - a hot spell 

These simple banners dressed up the town - wish my home town would do the same