The Little Red Hen

Wordless Wednesday - the Williamsburg sampler edition

Norfolk Botanical Gardens

After our canoe trip in Maryland we traveled to Norfolk, Virginia and visited the Botanical Garden there. We reached azalea overload there but also saw many other interesting sights and beautiful flowers in bloom.

 

An Afternoon on the Pocomoke

Last week while on spring break, we went to Virginia and visited B's mom. After a couple of days there we went to eastern Maryland had an afternoon canoe trip on the Pocomoke River. I took many pictures but have boiled the trip down to a reasonable number to share with you.

It was a great afternoon but I wish I had worn sunscreen and a hat.

Gratitude

I am grateful that I can share my love of miniatures with my daughter. We enjoyed viewing the Thorne rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. We have also been having fun with some of my miniature pieces that I collected as a child.

The Art Institute of Chicago

We are back from a quick trip to Chicago. This was the last weekend that the golden orb spider silk weaving would be on display. We picked up P from school on Friday and were on our way.

I had forgotten how much there is to see at the Art Institute of Chicago.

P and I spent a bit of time looking at the Thorne Rooms.

There we are!
We wandered around the museum for hours until we couldn't absorb any more. There was much that we didn't see. I guess we'll have to make another trip to Chicago one day!
After a quick walk over to the lake we hopped back on the train to go back to the airport area where we had stayed the night and left our car for the day.
Quick trips can be fun!

Magic Garden

After visiting the guitar factory we stopped at Ringing Rocks State Park and hit some rocks.
Back in Philadelphia, we walked from our B & B in search of some food.

On our walk we passed Philadelphia's Magic Gardens.

This kind of folk art is so interesting.





I love the doily imprints.



Our walk ended here, at the famous Geno's Steaks.

The next day we arrived at my mother-in-law's in Virginia just in time to experience the first earthquake! We really had a fun vacation!

Martin & Co. - Factory Tour

While in Philladelphia we didn't see the historic spots downtown, we toured the Martin guitar factory just north of Philladelphia.
It was a much bigger operation than I was expecting.

Guitar parts were everywhere.

I loved all of these clothes pins used in this step.

They have a mix of automated and hand work procedures.


Each guitar gets tuned and tested when it is finished.
The on site museum was also interesting. You can get a taste of the older ways of making guitars and see some pretty fancy custom work.

I couldn't resist a little costume bling.

If you are ever in the area I think it's worth a stop.

Big City Tours

Our trip south to Virginia included a few big east coast cities. The first was Boston. We stopped long enough to take a walk around Harvard and visit the Harvard Natural History Museum.

My favorite exhibit there was the collection of glass flowers.

Yes, these are pictures of flowers that are made of glass. "The models were created by father and son Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, nineteenth century glass artisans who perfected their family craft. Their lineage of jewelers and glassmakers trace as far back as the fifteenth century." (from the Harvard Natural History Museum website.) They worked on the flowers from from 1887 to 1936.
Truely incredible delicate creations all of glass.
I also enjoyed some of the needlework like these molas

and this doll that were on display at the Peabody.
We also took a quick walk around the MIT campus which wins for "coolest building on a college campus".

I wonder what you have to do to get this lab space.

We also saw this sculpture on our MIT walk.

From there we headed to Rhode Island. Because, well, none of us had ever been there before! (I think this means that Alaska is the only state I have not visited!) Next we drove through New York City, just because we could and stopped in Philadelphia.

I hope you are not too bored with the details of our trip. We have been home a couple of days and are still dealing with the catch up at home. We have lots of garden stuff to do and the boys are packing and cleaning their rooms in preparation to move off to school later this week.

It is wonderful to extend my vacation by sharing a bit of it with you.

Stay tuned for a FACTORY TOUR tomorrow!

Liberty Tool

B took us to a very interesting shop, Liberty Tool, not far from our camp site.

It was filled to the brim with tools and other old interesting things.

I am pretty sure they would have just about anything you might be looking for...
do you have a tool with a broken handle?

Do you need a hammer?

Or maybe a saw?
It was a great place to browse.

The first floor was pretty much all tools but the upper three, yes there were FOUR floors to this place, had more variety. There were lots of books but we also saw an unusual piano, an early style bike, and a huge floor loom, and a number of things that I have NO idea what they were.

I liked that most items were displayed in old wood crates of all sizes.

If you are ever in the area it is definitely worth a stop. There is even a great ice cream shop around the corner.  They make all their ice cream on site.

Boats

My posts about our trip to Maine wouldn't be complete without a post on boats.

We saw lots of boats.

So many different boats.

Can you tell I loved the shore?

Yeah. It was fun.

I have a couple of other fun places to share with you next week.