Photo: a view of the back of my Honda Fit with my electronic recycling. The large piece of furniture is an old radio/stereo. I backed the car up to the garage door, hauled the stereo over to the back of the car and tipped it into the cargo area. I put a blanket down so the car would not get scratched. Piece of cake.
The Plan
The original plan for last Saturday, Sept. 26th, was for me and Barbara to gather up our electronic recycling and head for the Trash Museum in Hartford. In the process of cleaning out every nook and cranny in order to move, I am amazed at the obsolete electronic stuff I had accumulated. I don’t know what Barbara’s excuse is. ☺
As I was reading the morning paper, I saw a teeny tiny news item about Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day with FREE admission to over 400 museums nationwide and over a dozen in Connecticut.
First I got on the phone to Barbara to see if she was interested in having a day-long adventure. She was. From there I got a list of museums and chose two definite destinations plus one “maybe”. After printing out the Free Admission “tickets” we were ready to go.
Recycling
We arrived at the recycle center on Murphy Road in Hartford about 10 o’clock. The guys who were taking the stuff out of cars were a great bunch. When they got the old stereo/radio out of the car they all stood around to admire it. Every one of them said the same thing: "My grandmother had one like that.” Very funny.
Wadsworth Atheneum
We bid them adieu and headed for the Wadsworth Atheneum (the oldest public art museum in the United States). We spent a couple of hours lost in the art of Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Monet, Manet, and van Gogh. There were more but I can’t remember all of them. Of special note were the huge canvases by John Trumbull (from Lebanon, Conn.; the son of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull) depicting scenes from the Revolutionary War. I wish I had taken notes…I don’t want to name the works hanging there because I’m not 100% sure of the scenes depicted. (I know, I’m a lousy reporter!)
We saw the works of so many masters I went into culture overload. We also saw sculptures from Egypt and fine china and porcelain from around the world.
Two hours is not enough time to see everything. We found we were going from room to room to room and having no idea where we were…finally coming out to where we started.
Parallel parking
I have to boast here…I found a tiny parking space on the Prospect St. at the rear of the Atheneum and parallel parked on the first try! Hadn’t had to do that in years, but it all came back to me once I started the process.
Lunch
We left the Wadsworth and headed for Farmington to visit the Hill-Stead Museum. But first we needed to have lunch. We planned ahead and had our picnic lunches with us. I thought it would be pleasant down by the Farmington River below the Millrace Book Store. We went down the stairs, jumped a small ditch and proceeded to spread our blanket over a fallen tree. Lunch tasted so good.
On to Hill-Stead
Neither of us had ever been to the Hill-Stead Museum. This past summer I thought of attending the poetry in the sunken garden on Wednesday nights, but never made it. I don’t know how much time we spent looking at the collection of Monet, Degas, Cassatt, and Whistler along with photographs of the family and local life. The history of the Museum and the Pope-Riddle family can be found at the museum’s website. We also toured the sunken garden which was being set up for a wedding later that afternoon.
It was now after three o’clock and time to go home. A grand spur of the moment adventure! My kind of day.
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