More friends to visit

It has been a while since we have had access to wireless...the last few days follow.

May 28, Monday
We stopped to visit another "old" high school friend, Marilou Cerveny Haworth, and her husband, Les, in Elgin, IL. We spent a lovely evening together catching up on old times. Marilou has been keeping busy with training their very well behaved dog, singing with a group, and keeping a beautiful garden.

Mel found a few jobs to help Les out with.

While in the area we purchased a small battery operated fan to put into our refrigerator...now we have a cold refrigerator again. Thank goodness!

May 29, Tuesday

After leaving Elgin, we took a drive through Wheaton to check out Mel's old family home. It looks about the same.

Next stop, Highland Park, IL to visit a Surface Design Association friend of mine, Kathy Weaver, and her husband Nelson. On the way, we drove by the Mary Adams House (1905) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It has just been restored and looks unoccupied at the moment.

Kathy is a fiber artist who does incredible work with the air brush. She lets her imagination take her into a magical world of robots on cloth, paper and in scupture. I enjoyed seeing Kathy's spacious studio and having the opportunity to see some of the new work which will be going into her next exhibit, "Weaver's World -- Robots: Drawings and Mixed Media", June 8 - July 14, 2012, The Art Center, Highland Park, IL.

May 30, Wednesday
After a delicious breakfast (thanks for the cappuccino, Nelson), we took a walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline at Fort Sheridan with Kathy and Nelson. The walking path is just a short walk from their doorstep.

Next stop, the Racine Art Museum. I was introduced to this museum at our last SDA Conference by one of our speakers, Director Bruce Pepich. In addition to works on paper, they have an extensive collection of fine craft. We were lucky to catch "Out on a Limb", an exhibit of contemporary wood jewelry. The gift shop is pretty wonderful as well. We had a chance to say hi to Bruce during our stop. We recommend Racine on any trip North and be sure to stop by a fun little coffee shop just a block away, Bare Coffee at 327 Main.

We had our first laundromat experience that afternoon. Lucky there was a Dollar Store next door:) We spent the evening at Cliffside Park, Caledonia,WI, half way between Racine and Milwaukee. Very quiet, almost deserted.

May 31, Thursday
The fellow at the Bare Coffee Shop in Racine talked us into visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum. So happy we did. What a spectacular building.  We didn't realize that the huge "wings" on the roof actually closed at several times during the day until after we left the museum.

Looks like I might have caught the wings closed in the photo to the left and not even known they had moved from when we first entered the building. The 341,000-square-foot Museum includes the War Memorial Center (1957) designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, the Kahler Building (1975) by David Kahler, and the Quadracci Pavilion (2001) created by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.

Following our Museum visit we took another recommendation by the Racine Bare Coffee Shop fellow, and stopped by the Alterra Coffee Shop at the Lake, just a short drive from the Museum. It is housed in an old water works plant that we found most interesting. Good coffee and free Internet.

Spent the night at Walmart half way between Milwaukee and Madison. Off to Madison!