Finally made it to the Figge Museum, thanks to the Des Moines Art Center’s Docent program. I enjoyed the French Moderns show, a traveling exhibit from the Brooklyn Museum, but also enjoyed the fabulous outsider art of William Hawkins, an exhibit of John Bloom (liked his rural scenes much more than the work of his known wife Isobel.) The Figge building, the first new major U.S. commission for English architect David Chipperfield (whose latest commission is an addition to the Met in NYC) is stunning. It’s clad in white see-through glass with huge windows looking out to the Mississippi and high white ceilings inside.
We stayed at the renovated historic Hotel Blackhawk which was organized by the tour, otherwise I would stick with a much less expensive Airbnb, although the hotel had some charming features including an old-fashioned atrium lobby and a funky bowling alley /bar in the basement. I’m also curious about the artsy Current Hotel, which has a fantastic rooftop bar called Up, with an outdoor patio with stupendous views of the river and lock and dam. We bumped into the Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell who was preparing for a debate today. We wished him well!
Dinner was very good at The Faithful Pilot, about a half hour drive north in LeClaire. Three others joined us and we were all happy with our meals and each other. We all had small plates. Dirck and I had excellent pork belly with potatoes plus mussels in a light tomato sauce. Glad we booked ahead. Small place and busy. It has a cool view of the old riverboat beached behind a glass wall in the local history museum and a cozy atmosphere, with an occasional train rumbling past, near the riverbank.
We had a mediocre lunch at Lagomarcino’s Confectionery in East Davenport. Better to stick with their specialties – -candy and ice cream. We did have a good chocolate milk shake. Also went to a nonprofit art gallery in rock island. Other Davenport restaurants to try: Me and Billy Cafe, Front Street Brewery and Duck City bistro.
The skies gradually cleared and we had a glorious drive through the Pennsylvania countryside, past PA Dutch stone houses and barns, small towns with row houses lining the street, Amish buggies pulled by trotting shiny horses, rolling fields of corn,and soybeans.
First stop was Grim’s Apple Orchard just south of Allentown in Breinigsville, PA where I just missed the Mutsu/crispin harvest (oct. 14) but got some excellent honeycrisps. On to Manheim , a small Lancaster County town where we visited my aunt’s college friend Mary, who lives in an old farm house where she grew up, now surrounded, oddly, by a used car dealership.
We drove through grey skies and drizzle north thru the Poconos to Scranton so my aunt could visit an old friend from college. The drive was pretty, weather notwithstanding, and the leaves are starting to change. (I am told they are late this year.)
I did a little exploring on my own, driving through downtown Scranton which I know little about except that it was the fictional location of the classic TV comedy, The Office. There are some great old hulking stone and brick buildings but didn’t see much reason to stop so I went to nearby Nay Aug (that’s not a typo) park, which has a waterfall and gorge. I met a nice young woman who was hiking around and she led me along the muddy trail to the falls, which were impressive, especially since there has been so much rain in the area. It wasn’t quite Ithaca quality but not bad. Ithaca was only 2 hours north (so near and yet so far….)
Easton is looking pretty good. Always a little ragged around the edges even though I love it dearly, (this is, after all, my mother’s hometown and where I spent summers with my grandma at her red brick row house), Easton seems to be remaking itself as a funky arts and culinary destination. So much so that we won’t be going to the farmers market around the circle downtown tomorrow because the annual garlic fest is on tap and draws some 20,000 people. Too many for us.
We finally found my grandparents’ gravestones, along with many great aunts and uncles (Sylvia, Nathan, Jeanette, Libby…) in a remote corner of the Easton cemetery. We could see cars whizzing by on RT. 22). We spotted the new Easton Public Market on Northampton Street, which looks pretty cool, and some vintage clothing shops and boutiques. The Caramel Corn Shop is still on the circle.
We drove along the river road, RT 611, that curves along the Delaware, past the occasional lovely stone house and barn. Also drove along an interior country road trying to find remnants of the summer camp I went to as a kids — Camptown. I love the countryside here. Very rolling, winding and green, with the leaves starting to change.
I walked along Main Street in Bethlehem, which has some interesting shops including The Steel Beam, with industrial chic artwork. The city is wisely marketing its faded industrial era, with lots of odes to Bethlehem Steel. Then there are the charming 18th. Century stone buildings, many part of Moravian College.
Amazing to be back in this corner of the world where my mom, my Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Tom grew up and where I spent many summers as a child visiting my beloved Grama Betty in Easton. Aunt Mary Ann and I haven’t been to Easton yet. We landed at ABE ((Allentown, Bethlehem Easton) airport in eastern Pennsylvania after a quick trip from Chicago (an hour 20 min.) and drove pretty winding backroads lined with tall trees and the occasional beautiful old Carmel-colored stone house to My cousin Ed’s House in Emmaus. We had a lovely dinner with his great family (wife Elizabeth, daughter Sarah, brothers Joseph and James) and then drove a very roundabout way to Bethlehem and this historic hotel Bethlehem which oozes character. I rarely stay at hotels anymore (no more business trips) so this a treat, with valet parking and bellhops and a friendly woman at the desk and chocolates on the pillow of the enormous bed, next to the waffle cotton robe. I think I am going to like it here. Can’t wait to explore Bethlehem and to visit Easton again, especially with my aunt who is full of old family stories that I am trying to jot down soon after she tells them.
Busy weekend visiting Noah in the Twin Cities. This trip we spent more time than we have in ages in St. Paul because Noah has moved there from Minneapolis. But we still made it back to our old stomping ground in Uptown, in part because we stayed again at a great Airbnb in south Minneapolis, in a 1917 stucco house a block from the bike trail along Minehaha parkway.
We checked out the revamped Sculpture Garden next to the Walker which looks a little shaggier and less manicured, thanks to the prairie plantings. I’m still a fan although I did notice that the spoon of the Oldenburg Spoonbridge and Cherry has a yellow water stain. I particularly liked the giant blue rooster sculpture. Noah did note, accurately, that several sculpture parks around the country seem to have work by the same sculptors and sometimes almost the same work. The McDonaldization of sculpture parks?
It took two tries (I botched the first one by failing to have my ID, believe it or not) we finally were admitted into Volstead’s Emporium, my first visit to a retro speakeasy, which I gather is a thing. To enter, we walked down a nondescript alley and stood in a short line in front of an unmarked industrial looking metal door where a guy occasionally looked out at us through a peep window he slid open and closed. After a suitable wait to make sure we felt we were entering some exclusive club (shades of Studio 54) he let various parties trickle in after others trickled out.
We drove our new friends Christine and Alain to Sogndal this morning, where we visited the local pharmacy to pick up some pain pills for my arm from a kind pharmacist and had a last coffee togegether. We really enjoyed hanging out with them and hearing about their interesting lives in faraway places. They invited us to their old stone house in Provence and I have a feeling we will visit.
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Over the years we have dipped in and out of St. Paul, trying a restaurant here or visiting a shop there but never getting a sense of the place or the lay of the land. With Noah now living in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul, we spent more concentrated time there and left with a better feel for the place, which looked lovely on a early fall weekend with the trees just starting to change.
Later we had very good sandwiches at the St. Paul Cheese Shop near Macalester College (prosciutto and brie; roast beef, arugula, red pesto.) Dirck and I drove past the grand mansions along Summit Avenue (the annual house tour the following day was packed with people lining up in front of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s boyhood home and other stately homes. Unable to find Common Good Books where we’d last visited it decades ago, we discovered it had long ago moved — around the corner from the Cheese Shop where we ate lunch. It’s still good, even it owner Garrison Keeler’s star power has since dimmed.
Before leaving we walked around Lake Como, dropping in at the old pavilion (which we later learned is a 1992 replica of the original early 1900’s structure), the cool old streetcar station with a facade of round stones, a torpedo monument to the WW2 submarine, lovely old Victorian homes overlooking the lake with long green lawns and well tended gardens and porches. The “kiddie” cones at Grand Ole Creamery were big enough for this adult. And takeaway sandwiches from a Kowalski’s Market will do for dinner on the road home. (Not as good as the St. Paul Cheese Shop, though.)
