Saturday, January 21, 2017

Up the Wide Missouri

Now it must be dutifully reported and lamented that Brian "Fox" Ellis, noted raconteur and historical personality, does not share our vision for a group of geriatric groupies following him on tour.  WE envision toting his traps and pelts between performances, warming up crowds of followers wearing historically correct headgear and perhaps chanting the Bear Song.   HE, we fear, sees old people dressed in pelts on sidewalks, perhaps dispensing little samples of Peyote buds and comestibles of uncertain origin. Then, there is the cost of healthcare to consider.

This bitter disappointment did not in any way lessen our enthusiasm for his performance at the famous Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville Ga. 



Images ruthlessly hacked from the internets


We were accompanied by the Someday '59 clan.  Brian, Lynnetta and the three brilliant home schooled youngsters ALL know the proper pronunciation of Sacagawea  and a couple can explain the three part diphthong required. Like the rest of the audience, we were carried back to 1832 when Prince Maximilian traveled up the Missouri visiting and recording the lives of tribes he met only a few years after Lewis and Clark.

Karl Bodmer accompanied the expedition and his art has become the basis of much we know about the tribes of the Missouri

We LIKE Western Art Museums.  We learned at the Rockwell in Corning New York to appreciate the huge canvases that inspired our leaders to save these scenes as National Parks. (And, we think, there is a lot less fawning psychobabble amongst the visitors.) If you appreciate the cowboy and horses and saddle leather, grand landscapes and detailed bronzes of the first Americans, you will enjoy the Booth.

Back at our own Airstream campsite, there were table games and Great Pyrenees dog fondling, witty repartee and multiple installations of colorful hammocks.  We watched as multiple levels of nylon were erected and perhaps learned more than we can use about mounting and dismounting a hammock.
     




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