Second post from the Berkshires, August 25-August 31

 Day 3 August 25

    Today we met Nan and Jim and we all went to Tanglewood for their season finale. We went early and ate lunch at the cafe there. The weather was perfect - warm, not hot. We strolled the grounds before taking our seats in The Shed. We have never sat closer to the stage, thanks to Nan and Jim going to Tanglewood box office to get the tickets.

What a performance with a huge chorus!

     The uninterrupted performance was Beethoven's Ninth with a choral back up of 200 singers. It was pure sound and so beautiful. It is impossible for us to describe how the music enveloped us all. It was so joyful and uplifting. We every human could experience it.

     Afterwards, we went back to their house for triple berry pie which was yummy.

Day 4 August 26

Frederick Remington

       It was Clark Museum Day for us. We drove to Williamstown and Nan followed about an hour later. Before she arrived, we toured an exhibit of art glass much from the Corning Museum, but included Lalique, Tiffany and others. Gorgeous.

      Then, we toured some of the permanent exhibits which include quite a lot of Winslow Homer and Renoir.

Glass exhibit

       After Nan arrived, we went to the exhibit of the work of Guillaume Lethiere (1760-1842). The son of an enslaved woman in Guadaloupe and a white plantation owner. His father took him to France at age 14 where he rose steadily in the art world becoming director of the Academie Francaise in Rome. He won many prizes and had a studio which produced several successful students, particularly women.

         "Despite his remarkable accomplishments and considerable body of work, Lethière is not well known today and has never been the subject of a major exhibition. An examination of Lethière’s extraordinary career reveals an ambitious artist who worked in multiple genres and at the grandest scale and sheds new light on the presence and reception of Caribbean artists and cultural figures in France during his lifetime."

       We ate in the lovely garden at the Museum which never disappoints as it's so beautiful.

       On the way back, we stopped to check on the new Covid vaccines, but they are still not in.

Day 5 - August 27

        A lazy, at "home" day for the most part. We did a laundry and had a dip in the pool and some reading.

         We met Andrew Cromartie and Janet Forest at The Mint, Indian Restaurant. It was nice to see them and hear all about their busy lives here; both are doing well and happy they moved here.

Day 6, August 28

         We started with another lazy day in the morning with Mark beating Barbara at a game of mini-golf and a morning reading. We later went to Nan and Jim's for a delicious meal of chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and artichokes.

Day 7, August 29

   Our big thing today was finally getting the lastest Covid vaccine which just came out. We wanted to get it before our big adventure. 

     We went to Nan and Jim's for big nibbles - enough for a meal, for sure. It included a delicious tomato tart. We took home more peaches and garden yummies from their garden.

Day 8, August 30

       We left the timeshare and took routes 90 to 91 and then onto Route 2 by Greenfield. We ate at the Wagon Wheel in Turners Falls which is a good place to stop for good and inexpensive food and a nice place to sit outside. Then, we drove to Concord to stay with Jecca and Willy who are starting their school year. Willy made a yummy meal of Vietnamese meatballs. We made a peach torte with the peaches from Nan and Jim.

Day 9, August 31

We hung around Concord, watched tennis, packed/repacked.