Galleries and nature

Today we spent visiting art galleries, made a trip up to the end of the peninsula again and then to the Peninsula State Park to drive along a road we had not taken yesterday.

First we visited The Clearing, a folk school for adults founded in 1935 by John Jensen. Tom was familiar with it from the days when Helen and others he knew gave workshops there in the summers.

Here he is at the door of the Visitor's Center.

Right at the entrance was this group of bonsai.

You will see this is only on the the "tree photos" I took today.

From there we went to a town park on a bluff overlooking the bay. Again, mostly photos of trees and of the view.

We retraced our steps and visited Ellison Bay Pottery, where John Dietrich was giving a demonstration of throwing a pot, explaining as he went along. Here is John at work and an example of some of his finished work. Beautiful things!

We visited a few other places, including Linden Gallery, which features Asian art and antiques in a building that was once a Lutheran Church. They have everything from chopstick rests to large sculptures and antique furniture. It felt more like a museum than a gallery.

Then we headed up to Gills Rock at the tip of the peninsula. Yesterday we were on the Lake Michigan side, but this faces into Green Bay. It is the hopping off point for ferries out to Washington Island.

Then we had a nice lunch and returned to Peninsula State Park. Yesterday we had driven along the Shore Drive. Today we drove on Skyline Drive.

This time Tom took a picture of me to prove I had been on this trip, not just him.

That is Nicolet Bay in the photos and one of the Strawberry Islands, I think. 

If you squint, that is Michigan you see on the horizon. Really.

Then we stopped at Fine Line Designs, which is right next to where we are staying. Besides their gallery, they have a sculpture garden that is like a small park filled with whirligigs and things. It was a beautiful day and we sat on a bench and enjoyed the breeze spinning the mobiles around for a while.

Among the other things in the garden was this life-sized hawk, perched on a narrow pillar. The gallery had other works by the same sculptor, and they were tempting.

We head home tomorrow, planning to stop at The Ridges Sanctuary, Wisconsin's first land trust, protecting 1600 acres of the most biologically diverse ecosystem in the state. After wandering around there, we plan to make at least one other stop along the way to the Dells, but we haven't decided when or where that will be. It is about a four hour drive, and it is a good idea to break it up a bit.