Travels in the 2nd half

  In the hills lining the shore of Lake Champlain, is a museum dedicated to a history not usually connected with Vermont. The Rokeby Museum presents a look into life on a farm during the 19th and 20th centuries. However its focus is on the role that the farm and its owners played in the Underground Railroad. Rokeby Farm was cleared in 1780’s and the farm was purchased in 1793 by Thomas Rowland Robinson, a Quaker from Newport, Rhode Island. The farm consisted of 90 acres. Its main house was built in 1814, and the outbuildings were constructed at various times over its history. The Robinson family originally made its money raising Marino Sheep for their wool. This was lucrative at the time, because Spain had an embargo on the sale of Marino sheep, whose wool was highly desired. Prices for the wool remained high until the King of Spain was forced to begin selling sheep on the international market. This caused the price to drop greatly. The Robinson family then switched to dairy farmi...

The Chrysler Museum If you throw 4 or 5 pieces of art into a room and call it a museum I will probably stop in and see it. So, on my one day in Norfolk VA I decided to visit the Chrysler Museum of Art . It is a lot more than just 5 pieces of art, and well worth the trip. Wlater P Chrysler - Harris & Ewing, photographer via wikicommons The Chrysler Museum was founded by Walter Chrysler Jr., the son of the car magnate. In 1971 he merged his collection with that of the Norfolk Museum of the Arts and Sciences. He chose Norfolk because it was the hometown of his wife, Jean Esther. The museum sits at the head of The Hague , an inlet that serves as the border to the Ghent District, an area of historic homes, mostly built between 1890 and 1902. The main building opened in the 1920’s and was renovated and expanded, reopening in 2014. The permanent collection of the Chrysler is an excellent survey of art history, ranging from Greek/Roman statuary to contemporar...