Our Trip Blog

          A bright light disturbed my sleep, so I promptly rolled over and pulled my pillow over my head. Caitlin reached over and pulled away my pillow and for a while I just sat there, waking up. Then, Mom popped her head into the downstairs living room of our friends, the Spragues’ house, and yelled, “First one in the bathroom gets the shower!” That woke me up and the race was on. Thrice, I circled the futon that Caitlin and I had shared for the past two nights, gathering clothes and other things for my shower. I ran into the bathroom and shut the door. Not even thinking to put my contacts in, I almost hopped into the shower fully dressed. I corrected my mistake and then proceeded to take a nice hot shower. After all of us were neatly showered and dressed, we headed up to eat the delicious breakfast that Abby, Daddy, and our hostess Helen had prepared for us. There were scrambled eggs with four different types of cheeses, bacon, beautifully arranged sliced oranges, dense, sugary muffins, crispy toast, creamy yogurt, soft bagels with cream cheese, and a bountiful array of juices. We ate all of this with much enjoyment. We packed up the RV with our junk, said goodbye to Al and Helen and then headed out of Amherst, Massachusetts to begin the day.

          We arrived in Stockbridge, Massachusetts with much pomp and circumstance, donning rain coats and splashing through puddles until we reached the entrance of the Norman Rockwell Museum. (Oh, by the way, it had been raining since early morning). For those of you who don’t know who Norman Rockwell is, neither did I. So, for those of you who are as well educated as me, I found this description on the Norman Rockwell website. “Norman Rockwell's subject was the America he knew and the people who shared the hope that it offers. For over 60 years, he painted this country and its people with unabashed frankness and poignancy, giving us a living chronicle of ourselves, our dreams, and our aspirations.” So, now you know. Basically, Rockwell was a talented illustrator and artist, who drew humorous, realistic scenes of everyday American life and was an illustrator for the cover of Saturday Evening Post for many years.

          Upon entering the museum, we left our dripping coats in the coat room, used the facilities (we seem to be doing that a lot on this trip), and went into a gallery where a talk was scheduled to begin. Claire, our “interpreter,” told us about Rockwell’s life, legacy, and some of the paintings. After this talk, we watched a brief video on Rockwell’s life and then looked at the hundreds of covers for the Saturday Evening Post that covered the walls of the theater room. All of them are funny depictions of the American lifestyle and we had fun looking at the ones for April Fool’s Day. These always had a certain number of things wrong with them. We read that Rockwell painted one of these covers to have 40 things wrong with it and a man from South America wrote a letter and said he found 120! We viewed all of the galleries and looked at the gift shop, before heading out to his studio.

          His studio was basically a rebuilt carriage house. He had a special green couch and of course his easel and some of his famous works. There was a brass helmet that he found in Italy in an antique shop and assuming it was an ancient gladiator helmet, he bought it to use for a costume on a model. The next day, he saw a fire down the street and all of the fire fighters were wearing the exact same type of helmet. So, Rockwell kept it as a way to remind himself that he was not always right. After we were finished, we headed out to the RV to heat up some leftovers for lunch.

          However, we found that because we had less than a quarter tank of gas, the generator would not go on and therefore, the microwave did not work. So, lunch turned into somewhat of an adventure. With all of the food on the table, we drove out to the nearest town in search of gas. Finally we found an old fashioned sort of gas station with expensive gas. The gas station’s roof was too short and the pump was on the wrong side. So, we drove down a ways, did a U-turn and came back only to discover that a school bus had taken our spot and so we waited, filled up, and then headed back to the parking lot for a delicious lunch.

          We spent the next five hours on the road. We passed through New York and New Jersey, and finally reached Pennsylvania. We, well at least I, sat comfortably wrapped in blankets reading or sleeping cozily with the rain still driving hard on our roof. Mom and Daddy took turns driving until reaching our destination Mertztown, Pennsylvania where our old (well not old but you know what I mean) former pediatrician, Dr. Amy Jibilian, now resides.

           We had a good time catching up and telling stories over a pizza dinner. For dessert, Dr. Jibilian served us Shoo Fly pie, a Pennsylvania recipe, with vanilla ice cream. The pie was delicious and we all enjoyed our time with Dr. Jibilian immensely. We said good night, headed out to the RV, and snuggled in bed, while visions of Shoo Fly pies danced in our heads.