At the Red Lion Inn...

Curses! We set out for an early walk this chilly Sunday morning in Stockbridge, MA and I spotted a beautiful red cardinal in a red berry tree. Set against the clear blue sky, it would have made the perfect picture--but I had left the camera in our room at the Red Lion Inn.

Approaching the end of our East Coast trip, I'm feeling a bit beat-up. My back aches sorely. I'm losing things, and forgetting others. But this part of America is just so beautiful in the Fall--we're a wee bit late for the leaves in their full splendor, but the trees are still lovely, and it's a treat to walk with one's feet in piles of sodden foliage--that I feel privileged to be here.

Yesterday, our nephew Danny drove us up to Lenox, where we stopped for a rather odd breakfast, and visited the retreat center called Kripalu, where everyone was walking around with a yoga mat and a blissful smile on their face. Though sometimes even a Buddhist feels like this...

Coming in from the outside, we felt like the proverbial fish out of water, but we could see what a great place it would be to spend a week with healthy food and healthy physical activity--and, of course, meditation. A young woman at the bookstore was kind enough to take an interest in Persist, and it would be a wonderful venue for a talk or workshop. Perhaps another time...

We drove on through the lovely Berkshires landscapes (Ellie's pictures) ...

... to Williamstown...

... where our first stop was The Clark, a wonderful small museum which covers two millennia of Western art with mostly small but choice examples of virtually every style and period. Ellie had been wondering what it was that created the "Williams mafia"--a small, elite group of curators and museum directors who all came out of Williams College a few decades back--and The Clark must be at least one part of the answer. It's a perfect study museum. We also visited the college's own museum, the Williams College Museum of Art and were impressed by the quality and range of the exhibitions there. A great selection, particularly, of works by Monet and Winslow Homer...

(The one below is my own abstract art piece, a shot of the Williamstown sidewalk!)

An hour's drive back to Stockbridge at sunset...

... by which time my back was in severe spasms. Took a walk to try to relieve the pain a bit, and ended up with a bowl of soup and a shared salad in the "Tavern" at our Inn.