The mid-west part of our trip is focused less on art and architecture and more on the great outdoors.  We have visited a number of natural, and unnatural, i.e., man made, wonders.  The natural include the Badlands of South Dakota and the Devils Tower in Wyoming where we had a Close Encounter of the Third Kind. The manmade wonders were Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorials.  We also took the time to visit Deadwood, SD where Wild Bill Hickcock was killed holding a poker hand of aces and eights, now known as the Dead Man's Hand, and toured a "Little House on the Prairie", aka, the 1906 sod house which was the center of the 160 acre homestead of the Brown family who came to South Dakota as part of a government program intended to attract settlers to this rather desolate part of the world.

One of the many impressive formations that make up the Badlands of South Dakota

Another view of the Badlands

Laura Ingalls Wilder, looking an awful lot like BJ, in front of the Brown prairie home

The magnificent sculptures on Mount Rushmore

Another view of Mount Rushmore

 

 

 

 

 

 

The unfinished Crazy Horse Memorial - the head seen in profile above is 87 feet high (the heads on Mount Rushmore are 60 feet high)

The model for the Crazy Horse memorial - it should look something like this in another 20 or 30 years.

We took this photo - it's not a still shot from Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Detail of the rock formation that make up the Devils Tower

Since leaving Chicago, we continued our tour of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in Madison, WI and added South Dakota ear-chitecture.  (Sorry about that pun - we can't help ourselves.)  We stopped to visit friends and relatives in West Concord, Minnesota.  Marty had the opportunity to visit cousin Debbie Avery and family and BJ had a reunion with college friend, Dr. H.C. Tronnier, whom she had not seen in 35+ years. Had to put a padlock on our purses when we visited the 96 acre Mall of the Americas just outside of St. Paul. We also saw lots of corn; fields and fields (and fields) of corn as we drove across country as well as 275,000 ears of corn decorating the Corn Palace in Mitchell SD.  Not quite as elegant as a FLW building but a lot of fun.  Tomorrow, Mount Rushmore.

Walter Rudin House in Madison, one of FLW's prefab houses designed for the middle class.

Detail of FLW's Monona Convention Center in Madison, WI

FLW's Unitarian Meeting House - the design was based on a pair of hands folded in prayer.

Our view from the car window for most of our drive through Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Marty and cousin, Debbie Avery, resident of West Concord, MN

Early photo of the Corn Palace.  Relatively new construction around the building makes it impossible to get a full photo of the palace today.

Detail of corncob design on 2012 Corn Palace.

BJ's words to live by  - You can't buy happiness but you can buy ice cream and that's kind of the same thing.

Three days and four nights in the City of the Big Shoulders - it wasn't nearly enough time.  Chicago has it all - spectacular architecture, great art (both in museums and on the streets), excellent restaurants, etc.  We focused on food and architecture.  Memorable meals included dinner at the Obama's favorite, Spiaggio, and  wonderful tortas at the more modest, Xoco, Rick Bayliss's latest venture.  We viewed Chicago's famous skyscrapers both from the river (Architecture Foundation of Chicago river cruise) and on foot, and walked at least four miles through Oakpark to see many of Frank Lloyd Wright's early homes.  See our favorites below.

Chicago Cityscape on 33 West Wacker Drive Building

Trump Tower.  Can't stand the man.  Love the tower.

Studio Gang's Aqua tower

Marina Towers

Detail of ornamental metalwork on the Sullivan Center, soon to be home of a Target store.

Frank Lloyd Wright's 1902 Arthur Heurtley House

FLW's 1901 Frank W. Thomas House in Oakpark.

Detail of Marc Chagal's Four Seasons mosaic at the Chase Plaza.

Niagara Falls was AWESOME!  We went to Buffalo primarily to visit Niagara Falls.  We were thrilled to find that the Buffalo area is also home of the Roycroft Campus, a handicraft community founded by Elbert Hubbard in the late 1800s which today continues to attract and train artists who produce pottery, furniture, copper ware, iron work and stained glass in the arts and crafts style.  The Campus includes the Copper Shop which sells the best selection of arts and crafts items we've ever seen.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for these two jobless women) most of the items were out of our price range.  We also toured the Darwin Martin House built by Frank Lloyd Wright and one of the best existing examples of his prairie style houses.

Horse Shoe, Bridal Veil and American Falls, collectively, Niagara Falls

(A) a satellite photo of the perfect storm or (B) the Whirlpool Rapids on the Niagara Gorge?

Close up of the top of Bridal Veil Falls

Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House in Buffalo

Boston was our last stop before turning left and heading back towards the West Coast.  We couldn't have had a better time, thanks in part to our great hosts pictured below.  True to form, our first stops were art museums (Museum of Fine Art and the Isabella Stuart Gardiner Museum - the new wing is fantastic) but we got out long enough to walk the Freedom Trail, visit Walden Pond, the Louisa Mae Alcott Museum, Trinity Church, walk through ritzy Beacon Hill, etc.  BJ visited with friends from her college days. 

The Halfpenny Weitzel family, Dave and Mary with Emma, Hannah and Simon.

The Massachusetts State House designed by Charles Bullfinch.

Old State House, the center of Boston's civic life in the 18th century.

BJ on the Boston Common

Walden Pond today.  What would Thoreau think?

 

Using Mystic as our home base, we spent four days exploring the Connecticut coast stopping in Old Lyme, Stonington and Newport.  In Newport, we visited two of the famous summer "cottages" built by the New England elite in the mid to late 1800s : The Breakers, a 70 room Italian Renaissance-style palazzo which was the Vanderbilt summer home; and the 1852 Victorian Chateau-sur-Mer, the first of the Gilded Age mansions built in Newport.  For rich New Englanders in the late 1800s, it appears that life was very much as described in The Great Gatsby. Mystic is filled with fine old homes built when it was a busy seaport.  The home of one our hosts  was built in 1860 for the Mystic Postmaster.  In Old Lyme, also known as the home of American Impressionism, we visited the Florence Griswold Museum.  Florence Griswold ran a boardinghouse popular with the artist community.  Many of her boarders (including Childe Hassan) used the house walls and door panels as their canvases.  The paintings are on view in the boardinghouse and definitely worth a visit.

Entrance to The Breakers, the Vanderbilt summer cottage in Newport.

Ruth's house, built in 1860 for Mystic Plumber and Postmaster, Parmenas Avery.

Stonington Harbor

One of many good restaurants in Stonington.

New York has come and gone

We are now into the heavy visiting part of our trip--visiting museums and friends. We stayed in Brooklyn in a nice one bedroom near the subway and went to museums during the day. Both of us fantasize that we live at the Freer gallery because it is such a beautiful mansion. If you only go to one museum in NY, go to the Freer.

Next stop Mystic, CT

Philly cheesesteak.  Oh yes.  There is a lot to see and do in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Collection, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, etc.  The City of Brotherly Love was the meeting place of the founding fathers of the US.  We get that and appreciate the important role the city played in US history.  Still, do not under rate that tasty emblem of Philadelphia, the cheesesteak, and the important decisions that have to be made when ordering.  Provelone or cheesewhiz?  It's not an easy decision my friends and we invite debate on the subject.

BJ, Marty and friend, Carolyn, having fun with Rocky

Leaders in the early laps of the Philadelphia International Cycling Championship

Elfreth's Alley,dating back to 1702, is the oldest residential street in America

Philadelphia skyline

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Marty and BJ having fun in Philadelphia