Weekend Wrap Up: Daytrippin'

With CB in Maryland through Labor Day weekend, we have taken a few little day trips that she would not have enjoyed very much. One such place was The Grounds For Sculpture - a simply magnificent indoor and outdoor art gallery of mostly contemporary sculpture on acres of beautifully landscaped grounds.  

Pink and Tink brought their sketch books and often pulled them out to draw when inspired.  Can I tell you how cute they are?  Who knows where Rella was... probably breaking something off to the side.

As impressive as the sculptures themselves are, the trees and lilies and water and little knolls serve as botanical art as well.  Too amazing for words, this place.

If you ever find yourself near Trenton New Jersey, I would definitely propose a visit here (on a nice day that is not too hot because it is mostly outside).  Apparently, they are open year round and every season provides a different experience.

Below is one of my favorite pieces entitled Wave which sits with two similar pieces in the massive sculpture garden.  Made of wire and colored glass it catches the sun's rays, shimmering quietly.  I love how something so delicate, fragile, and almost ordinary holds so much light and wonder.  I could sit and look at something like that for hours and feel like someone is moving furniture around in my soul and sweeping up the cobwebs to make room for more beauty.

Speaking of reorganizing the soul, the beach always does it for me too which is where we found ourselves planted on Sunday.  There is something about the pummicing sand, the racket off the tide, and the lilt of children's squeals over the wind and the waves that smooths the rough edges.  It's like those relaxation soundtracks I used to buy of babbling brooks or chirping birds and whatnot when I was all stressed out back in my "old life."

  

Ironically, though we live within an hour's drive of the ocean, we seldom day trip and have never spent a vacation or even weekend at the beach.  I'm not sure exactly why - maybe because Dr. Fabulous in his uncharacteristic UNfabulousness is not a big fan of the beach in general.  Yet, I think he's turning a corner.  It's hard not to like it when you see the joy on your children's faces as they hop each wave and build each sand castle.

The girls are past the ages of intensive supervision, though I am a bit of a freak around the ocean so Dr. Fab and I were both keeping an eagle eye and stayed in close range.  Nonetheless, it certainly was much more laid back than our last family beach experience where we had a 3 1/2 year old, 2 year old, and crawling baby.  I suppose that is why it took us so long to return.

I had forgotten about those mini little clams that bury themselves down in the sand.  We found a whole slew of them in a shallow little tide pool; white and blue and rainbow colored and the size of an infants pinky nail.  We just kept digging them up out of the mud, by the hundreds, and watched them burrow themselves back down again, just like I did when I was a kid.  I could be amused for hours doing this when I was 10 and apparently I still can (though my back hurt way worse hunching over like this than when I was 10).

It makes me get all trippy thinking of the Universe and stuff.  You know, in this tiny clam's world, a grain of sand is like a boulder and a twig is a sky scraper and we humans are incomprehensible as the concept of an infinite Universe is to me.  It's like, maybe there's something else out there bigger than us and we are just a bunch of tiny little clam shells amusing them.

Or, maybe not.  You see, I have very deep thoughts on the beach.  Very deep.  I should just dig in the sand like a normal person.  

It was an incredible weekend of simple, easy, quiet day trips; both of which concluded with ice cream - of course - because no good summer day trip is perfect without it.