Back on the road again

Tuesday, June 2.

It was a gorgeous day in west Michigan as we departed for the east coast. Having replaced our electric vehicle with a hybrid (a Honda CRV if you must know), we were eager to tackle our first major road trip in more than three years.  Yes, yes we did the trip to Sault Sainte Marie Ontario and a trip to Chicago but we were keen to drive back to New England to see family.  And that would have required God knows how many stops to charge yada yada yada.

But enough complaining. It was a pretty quick drive to our first stop, Cleveland. From our condo we drove right to the Cleveland Museum of Art to check out the Manet-Morisot exhibition now underway. And what a place! Located at the edge of an large oval green space close to the Botanical gardens and the Museum of Natural History this place is truly amazing.

And Grand Rapids please take note: the museum is free and ticketed exhibitions are free for military!

It was a moving experience for the both of us to revisit (once again) so many paintings of two of our favorite artists Edouard Manet and especially Berthe Morisot.

The exhibition was well laid out, easy to navigate and very well signed.

Just to give you a quick sample of Berthe's work:

A Summer's Day, 1879

And this:

Woman Sewing, c. 1879

And just one more:

Interior, 1872-73

From the exhibition hall on the lower level we moved upstairs and visited several of the galleries dedicated to Impressionism, Realism. We  skipped through the Abstract Expressionism to visit the photography gallery which was dedicated to early images of France during the time of Manet and Morisot. 

I was particularly taken by this image of Notre Dame taken by Charles Soulier from the early 1860s:

We made our way back down to the main floor and enjoyed a cup of coffee (our afternoon "hot beverage"in honor of Sheldon from the Big Bang) while soaking up this the incredible open space. 

We were fortunate to strike up a conversation with a fellow who has long since retired from the Cleveland Symphony where he played the viola. What began as a simple "where do you live?" turned into him sharing some wonderful stories with us.

From the museum we made our way back to our car and allowed Google maps to navigate us out of the nexus of meandering streets and residential neighborhoods to our hotel in Streetsboro (SE of Cleveland proper, getting us on our way to PA). When checking in, I learned there were not a lot of options nearby for food but one recommendation was for a Mexican restaurant, Don Patron. So after settling in off we went for a meal of tacos with sides of rice and beans washed down with as tasty cerveza.

Back to the hotel we relaxed until bedtime. Tomorrow it's off to our next stop, Gettysburg National Battlefield Park. We'll spend two nights there which will give us a good full day to pay our respects, particularly to the men of the 3rd and 5th Michigan regiments who suffered terribly in the Wheatfield and Peach Orchard on July 2, 1863.

Stay tuned!