Peabody/Essex Museum

We left about 10:00 this morning for Salem and the
Peabody Museum, Robert, Sue and I.

What a wonderful museum the Peabody is! We had
a wonderful time. Most of our time was spent
in a special exhibit which also cost extra. An
antique house, lived in for many, many generations
in China until the mid to late 20th century was taken
apart in China and put back together inside the
museum. All the tiles, the painted decorations
on the outside walls were there. The courtyard
even had bamboo growing so that when you looked
out a window you saw bamboo. The family had
been quite wealthy and had done quite well until
the Cultural Revolution. At that time, I believe
the house was abandoned.

There were many rooms, all furnished, but sparsely
and as Robert kept pointing out there were no chairs.
They took their food outside to eat, the early on
folks, but the later folks were shown in pictures
eating around a common table from common dishes.

The next hall was set up in 1799, to begin with.
This is an old museum! It contained many figure-
heads from ships. They were truly magnificent.
Each one was described at some length on a touch
screen computer where you pointed at the picture
you wanted described and you got a description.
If you pointed again (pointed, meaning touched)
the picture was enlarged. It was quite an
elegant way to label the various items.

The last hall we entered or spent any time in
was a Polar exhibit. This had gorgeous pictures
of both polar regions included a webcam series
from the north pole.

And finally, I'd really like to hear from you,
any of you who read this. It gets lonesome not
getting feed back.

I have heard from Martha, describing their bike
for diabetes bike ride. Carl rode 100 miles and
she rode 100 kilometers and next year she thinks
she'll go for the 100 miles. They were riding
for diabetes and both made their goals and the
whole group raised lots and lots of money!

I love you all...but miss hearing from you.