Shelburne Museum, Day 2

Bill didn't sleep well at all and was up before 6:00, I got up around 7:45. We finished our strawberry bread with our morning beverages, packed and headed out around 9:20.  Stopped at McDonalds for breakfast and were on the road by 9:45.

We stopped at The Shelburne Museum for Day 2 at 10:15.  Yesterday, we went to the right, so today we went to the left, starting at the Round Barn.  We had no idea what was inside but it was full of antique carriages, sleighs, toboggans and other conveyances.  Many of them were owned by the Webb family.

Check out the velvet seat!

This one is actually called a "traverse" and here's the information about it...

Next stop was the Circus Building, which is built in a U shape and fits in very nicely with the grounds and landscaping.  It includes a hand carved circus parade, as well as animals from a carousel.

And for the kiddos there's a carousel ride.

We checked out the Beach Gallery, which was full of firearms and missed the Railroad Station when we hurried to catch a tour of the steamboat Ticonderoga .

Seriously, this is an actual side-paddlewheel passenger steamboat that was completed in 1906 and traveled along Lake Champlain until 1953.  It was the last commercial operating steamer on Lake Champlain.  It's 220 feet long and was moved 2 miles overland from Lake Champlain to this exact spot in 1955.  That move was a "remarkable engineering effort that stands as one of the greatest feats of maritime preservation."

Short films run continuously showing the amazing move overland. I tried to find a link online but wasn't successful.  As we all know...I'm not that technically savvy.  If you're interested in watching it and can find it, send me the link and I'll include it here.  It's worth watching!

The top deck...

The red chicken was a design idea dreamed up by Mrs. Webb.

The main deck, very nice.

The tour was free and very worthwhile!

We wandered through the General Store and Apothecary Shop, which includes a collection of straight razors donated to the museum.  

From there to the Vermont House Gallery, which was full of antique furniture;

the Meeting House; Horseshoe Barn Annex - farm and trade wagons, stagecoaches and special vehicles; the Horseshoe Barn - more carriages, wagons and sleighs, the Print Shop, which has presses from the 1820's to 1950's.  I believe they do some commercial printing today.

Bookmark

Stationery

the Weaving Shop and finally...the Jail!

We didn't leave until 2:35!  It was a beautiful day, temperature around 70*.  

Before heading out of town, we made another stop at McDonalds for iced coffees and the bathroom, hit the road at 3:00.

We enjoyed a beautiful drive through Vermont and arrived at home by 6:50, still 64*.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

Shelburne Museum Day 1

We considered visiting the Shelburne Farm today, but since the weather prediction was "iffy", we decided to tackle the Shelburne Museum instead.   It's a whole lot more than a museum!  

Briefly...it was founded by Electra Havemeyer Webb in 1947.  Clearly she had more money than she knew what to do with ;o)  I believe the "museum" covers 40+ acres, houses more than 150,000 items, exhibited in 39 buildings, many of which are historical.  While there are 2 - 3 art galleries, it's more like a "collection of collections".  It just goes on and on and on and after 5 1/2 hours, we ran out of time (and steam).

The grounds are quite lovely and incorporate 22 separate gardens.

The Round Barn from the parking area

Welcome Garden

We started by visiting the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education.  There was a traveling exhibition called "Playing Cowboy: America's Wild West Shows".  There were displays regarding Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Shows, old movies, and bronze statues depicting cowboys and Indians, among other items.  This mural reminded me of Ray Martineau, Dan's dad.  I'm not sure he would be flattered, tho.

There was also a huge wall display showing dried bugs as art and wallpaper, of all things.

Kind of weird and freaky...it was seriously an entire wall!!!  I think this exhibition was called "In the Garden".

There was a nice view of the property from inside this building, which sits up on the hill.

One of the historical structures on the property is the Ticonderoga, a Lake Champlain steamboat.  

More on that in tomorrow's post.

We happened on the Prentis House and the Stencil House just in time for a tour.

The Prentis House

These were both old, historic properties that Mrs. Webb had moved to the grounds.

The Bostwick Garden was located in front of the Prentis House.

Throughout the property there was an exhibition called "Bench Space".  This piece was located outside the Webb Gallery, one of the actual art museums on the property.

"Chaise Gabion" by Celeste Roberge

And this piece, titled "Rocking PacMan" by Louise Lim was inside the gallery.

It's designed to be used by two people and you could actually tip over and fall out if the other person doesn't stop it with their feet.  The gallery staff actually encouraged people to use it.

We visited the Sawmill and the Settler's Barn and House, then the Dorsett House, which was filled with duck decoys.  Interesting but a little overwhelming.  How many decoys can a person look at and appreciate?

On to the Stagecoach Inn, which was filled with folk art sculpture, paintings and more.  Apparently Mrs. Webb started her collection with a cigar shop Indian.  At one time, this weathervane sat on top of the firehouse in Manchester, New Hampshire.  We guestimate it's about 6 feet long and it's the largest one in the Museum's collection.

"Fire Engine" attributed to J.W.Fiske Company (1873-1893)

From there we skipped the Stone Cottage, which was crowded, but visited the Schoolhouse, the Variety Unit which was filled with lots of different things including a collection of glass canes (seems quite impractical), dolls and doll houses and mechanical toys.  One section of this structure is the only building to be original to the property.  

We skipped the Toy Shop because we were running out of time and wanted to see the Hat and Fragrance Textile Gallery before we left.  There is a nice collection of antique quilts, 

along with some beautiful hooked rugs and a traveling show by Crystal Cawley, a Portland, Maine artist that creates some pretty wild stuff with everyday items.  She "works with paper, textiles, collected objects, and re-purposed materials, like library cards or old book pages."

Internet photo

Internet photo

We were about as far from the entrance as you could possibly get, so we hustled our way back before they locked us in for the night.

We only saw about half of the property today, so we'll come back tomorrow before we head home.

We decided to stop at the Tiny Thai Restaurant on our way home.  We got there a little early, thankfully!  It's very popular, probably because they serve a great meal.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

Vermont Quilt Show

We left the house around 11:15, under cloudy skies, and drove 15 minutes to the Champlain Valley Expo in Essex Junction for the 42nd Vermont Quilt Festival.  It's the oldest and largest quilt show in New England, which I'm sure Bill was not all that happy to hear.  He is a good sport, tho.

There was a large number of quilts to view, some of them spectacular.  I didn't spend a lot of time taking pictures but I captured a few.  These two quilted (not pieced) by a woman in Gorham, Margaret Solomon Gunn.  Paula took a class with her in April.

Of course, this was my favorite.  It's amazing how the quilter could make the circles actually look like honey.

 These were a couple of my/our other favorites.

"Won't You Take Me To Funkytown"

"Sunny Day Evolution"

 This one is really busy but we both really liked it.

This would be a great way to use up a bunch of scraps.

"Twinkling Stars"

Many of the stripped fabrics in this one came from men's shirts purchased at thrift stores.

"Layer Cake"

We spent a little over four hours, which included a break for lunch.  We each had a crepe filled with cheese and spinach and an Arnold Palmer to drink (half lemonade, half iced tea).  I purchased a small Laurel Burch bag which was very reasonably priced and two pieces of fabric to make microwave bowls for my friend Karen Ann (at her request).  

We left there really wanting a good cup of coffee, so even though we checked our app, we drove around and around and around.  We couldn't find any parking places near the coffee shops and it was spitting rain and pretty chilly (63*) so we ended up getting iced coffees at McDonalds.  *sigh*  We did find our way to Mallets Bay and parked in the only parking place we could find overlooking the water, even though it was restricted.  We sat in the car, drank our coffee and ate our oatmeal raisin cookies that we brought from Keepin' it Local in Shapleigh.

We left there, went to Shaws and bought items for dinner, then settled into our rental for the night.  We aren't very good night owls.

Another adventure awaits tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

Hello Vermont

This trip has been planned since last year because I have had the Vermont Quilt Show on my bucket list for awhile.  I found a carriage house rental on VRBO, which allows us to cook breakfast and other meals, if we choose to do so.  Unfortunately, last Friday I went to the Dr. with an ear ache and was diagnosed with an ear infection, which turned into a great cold, which I then passed to Bill.  I have lost my hearing (in my "good ear), neither of us feels very good and we are both coughing.  To top it off, the weather prediction is for rain over the weekend.  Not the best of circumstances ;o(

But...we're here and we'll make the best of it.  Hopefully ;o)

We left the house around 10 this morning and the four hour drive was quite pretty and went by quickly.  Beautiful blue sky and mountains full of green.  VT is the Green Mountain State.

We arrived right at 2:00, retrieved the keys from the lock box and were pleasantly surprised at just how nice this little place is.  The owners are a young couple that live in the house near the road.  The husband and his father built this carriage house over the period of a year.  It is beautifully done with lots of granite and tile, soft colors and extra special touches like the beautiful ceiling fan and swivel tv with an electric fireplace on the other side.  It can be turned around to watch tv from the bed, or watch the fire.  Very clever!  They left some fresh eggs in the fridge for us and also provide some nice local VT soap.

After unloading our stuff and saying hello to Emily, one of the owners, we headed into downtown Winsooki (5 minutes away) where we ate lunch outside along a row of small restaurants.  We chose the Mule Bar, where Bill had a burger and I had a hot dog.  

From there we headed to Shaw's to purchase some Kcups for the Keurig (only to discover there were some in a drawer in the rental), some strawberries for breakfast and a salad for dinner.  

Next stop was the Burlington Bikeway, which wasn't the place we thought it was, but it was nice just the same.  It was a short walk along the bike path, which was super busy, to the Burlington Earth Clock.  Very cool!  

There's a circular stone in the center of the earth clock

and smaller circular stones in a semi-circle around the edge.

This is what a pano picture looks like when you wobble but they really are situated in an arc.

When you stand on today's date in the large circle, your shadow will point to the solar time on the smaller circles.

4:40 pm

This area overlooks Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains.

There is a nice public beach, including kayak and paddle board rentals. Dogs are even allowed, as long as they are kept on leash.

Further along there is a picnic pavilion, restrooms and a short path to this treehouse.

The path ended shortly beyond here, in a neighborhood area, so we turned around and walked back, which took only about 15 minutes.

Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains

The Earth Clock from the other direction

It was way past the time we settle down with our iced coffees and our books, so we picked up our coffees and headed back to the rental, where we sat on the deck and relaxed until nearly 8:00.  The sun didn't set until 8:46!

This is the view of the back yard and the chicken coop from the deck...very nice and quiet, except we discovered we were in today's flight path to the airport.

We considered going back out to watch the sunset but neither one us really had the energy so we ate our salad and settled down to watch tv.  I was kind of sorry we didn't go when I saw this view out the window over the bed.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)