In Laramie, we had lunch with Ross' old friend Slim, and then we stopped by the UW Art Museum, which is also the
American Heritage Center. Sadly, they were repairing their fire suppression system, so the exhibits were all wrapped up in plastic, and outside a huge storm had blown in.
Ross struck up a conversation with the woman at the front desk, and she offered to call the archivist and see if we could browse around in the reading room. And we could.
Color Studies were set up for a class of art students.
And the archivist was hard at work, demonstrating Ross' future. (Behind those stacks of papers, you can see her head.)
A young assistant got out some nifty books for us to look at.
There was a portfolio full of "visual poem" broadsides. This one was printed on very thin wood.
The
Arion Press edition of Moby Dick was a huge book, with beautiful woodcut illustrations. I love the way a page of Melville is full of exclamation points and question marks.
The rain stopped and the sculpture deck was full of blinding sun.
There are ways to make wood appear as rock.
It was high time we got back on the road.
We saw a lot of what Brigid calls "God Rays."
We were excited to find the perfect dinner spot: an A & W with its own little root beer loving family on the roof. But it turned out they were closed on Mondays.
Ross really wanted to get a photo of me in a "pilgrim hat."
The next morning I found myself back in Sheridan. I took Ross for a visit to King's Saddlery Museum. Maybe Ross is related to this saddlemaker, Carl.
Don King died in 2007, but his saddles and ropes are world famous. One of Ross' grad school profs even wrote his dissertation on "Sheridan Style" tooling, which means King's style, characterized by an interlocking rose pattern. The museum is chock full of Western paraphernalia--from gleaming, horse-drawn hearses, to beautifully tooled saddles, beadwork moccasins, and zillions of photographs. Did you know that horses wear snowshoes?
I think I'd look pretty good in this Charro outfit. If only I could weasel it out of that case...
In Livingston, MT, we had to stop for a look at this radio station building.
And in Bozeman we stopped for blindingly spicy tacos, and then got trapped by yet another storm. This time there was hail, and we waited it out in the first building we came to. Lucky us, it was a historic hotel lobby.
In Missoula, we stayed in a less historic hotel.
We stopped at Montana Valley Book Store, in Alberton, and mostly chatted with Karen, the owner. She lives upstairs and works downstairs, she likes winter best, and she is looking for a new home for one of her cats--a "territorial sweetie."
Eastern Washington, on Highway 2, is pretty incredible--endless wheat fields studded with volcanic rock, and then canyons plunge into orchards. My camera was running out of batteries, and I left the charger plugged into the wall at my parents' house. But I was able to get one shot of Leavenworth, "Your Bavarian Getaway." I bet I can get Brigid some tasty Lebkuchen for Christmas...So Leavenworth was as silly as we thought it would be, but the country around there is beautiful. It was a steep downhill back to Seattle.
In Laramie, we had lunch with Ross' old friend Slim, and then we stopped by the UW Art Museum, which is also the American Heritage Center. Sadly, they were repairing their fire suppression system, so the exhibits were all wrapped up in plastic, and outside a huge storm had blown in.
Ross struck up a conversation with the woman at the front desk, and she offered to call the archivist and see if we could browse around in the reading room. And we could.
Color Studies were set up for a class of art students.
And the archivist was hard at work, demonstrating Ross' future. (Behind those stacks of papers, you can see her head.)
A young assistant got out some nifty books for us to look at.
There was a portfolio full of "visual poem" broadsides. This one was printed on very thin wood.
The Arion Press edition of Moby Dick was a huge book, with beautiful woodcut illustrations. I love the way a page of Melville is full of exclamation points and question marks.
The rain stopped and the sculpture deck was full of blinding sun.
There are ways to make wood appear as rock.
It was high time we got back on the road.
We saw a lot of what Brigid calls "God Rays."
We were excited to find the perfect dinner spot: an A & W with its own little root beer loving family on the roof. But it turned out they were closed on Mondays.
Ross really wanted to get a photo of me in a "pilgrim hat."
The next morning I found myself back in Sheridan. I took Ross for a visit to King's Saddlery Museum. Maybe Ross is related to this saddlemaker, Carl. Don King died in 2007, but his saddles and ropes are world famous. One of Ross' grad school profs even wrote his dissertation on "Sheridan Style" tooling, which means King's style, characterized by an interlocking rose pattern. The museum is chock full of Western paraphernalia--from gleaming, horse-drawn hearses, to beautifully tooled saddles, beadwork moccasins, and zillions of photographs. Did you know that horses wear snowshoes?
I think I'd look pretty good in this Charro outfit. If only I could weasel it out of that case...
In Livingston, MT, we had to stop for a look at this radio station building.
And in Bozeman we stopped for blindingly spicy tacos, and then got trapped by yet another storm. This time there was hail, and we waited it out in the first building we came to. Lucky us, it was a historic hotel lobby.
In Missoula, we stayed in a less historic hotel.
We stopped at Montana Valley Book Store, in Alberton, and mostly chatted with Karen, the owner. She lives upstairs and works downstairs, she likes winter best, and she is looking for a new home for one of her cats--a "territorial sweetie."
Eastern Washington, on Highway 2, is pretty incredible--endless wheat fields studded with volcanic rock, and then canyons plunge into orchards. My camera was running out of batteries, and I left the charger plugged into the wall at my parents' house. But I was able to get one shot of Leavenworth, "Your Bavarian Getaway." I bet I can get Brigid some tasty Lebkuchen for Christmas...So Leavenworth was as silly as we thought it would be, but the country around there is beautiful. It was a steep downhill back to Seattle.
No comments:
Post a Comment