Ron and Sally Jo Blog

We recently spent time with Lucy while Jessica was costume designer for “The Importance of Being Earnest” at Northern Stage in White River Junction, Vermont.  Sally Jo traveled by train and spent one week with Lucy and Jessica before Ron drove out to spend the second week.  What a fun two weeks!

When Sally Jo first arrived at the condo where Jessica and Lucy were staying there was a fair amount of snow on the ground.  Since Sally Jo did not have a car, she and Lucy read, did “art”, “played,” and explored the small area around the condo.

The weekend that Ron arrived, Jessica had a day off and we all explored Quechee Gorge.  The scenery was beautiful but the trail was very icy.  It made for very slow and careful hiking.

Other days Lucy, Ron, and Sally Jo visited Billings Farm near Woodstock, King Arthur Flour near Norwich, the railway station in White River Junction, Montshire Museum of Science near Norwich, and VINS; Vermont Institute of Natural Science near Quechee.  We saw many large raptors at VINS but realize that we have no photos because it was COLD and we didn’t spend much time outside!

The big snowstorm came through the night (Friday) before we were to leave.  We received only about 12-15 inches of snow where we were in Vermont.  The road crews were very efficient and we were able to leave by mid-morning Saturday.  We had beautiful scenery as we drove through Vermont and upstate New York.  We were disappointed to return to Goshen and find no snow!

We celebrated Sally Jo’s birthday several days in a row!  First we traveled to Chicago by train, spent two nights there attending two events, returned to Goshen and attended two events on Goshen College campus.

On our first evening in Chicago we ate at a delicious Armenian restaurant, Sayat-Nova, and attended Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.  (no photos – forgot the camera!)

We spent the next day at the Museum of Contemporary Art.  There were some very interesting exhibits.  One exhibit “Color Bind” highlighed MCA’s collection in black and white.  Another exhibit “Goshka Macuga: Exhibit, A” showed two fascinating tapastries among other projects, both highlighting Macuga’s interweaving of art and politics.  A third exhibit was not completely installed but we saw a bit of it, “Destroy the Picture: Paint the Void, 1949-1962.”  This highlighted the effect history of that era had on art.  What was fascinating was that the fact that these events all took place during our pre-college days!  We remember many of them!  We were also fascinated with the spiral stairway of the museum.  Oh, and yes, we had a delicious luncheon at the museum.

That evening we attended a concert with Michelle by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a group from South Africa at the Old Town School of Folk Music.  We always enjoy their music.

We returned home the next day and attended a concert by The English Concert at Goshen College.  The following evening was the college Winter Chorale Concert: “”An Evening of Opera.”  A fun concert with scenes from operas by Verdi, Offenbach, Gilbert and Sullivan and more.

What a fun four days–and what a variety of activities!