I am privileged to have some old women friends (literally, now) who date back to high school, and even most of them to elementary school. It’s a small group, and we have done very different things with our lives, but we still enjoy getting together, doing stuff, and laughing over a few glasses of wine when we can manage to find a weekend to gather.

Back in late April, six of us converged at our friend Linda’s home in Western Massachusetts. We had all sorts of great plans to go on a hike, sit on her back porch, etc. but the weather was rainy and in the 40s. (At one point it even started spitting snow.) So much for the out of doors. Instead, we visited a couple of museums. And ate a lot. And drank more wine.

First up, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. The iconic portrait artists spent the last part of his career and life in this quaint Western Mass town, and this large spiffy museum has an impressive collection of his work. A separate building houses his studio. Special exhibitions highlight other American artists – when we visited, one of my personal heroes, Rube Goldberg, was also celebrated in a smallish side gallery.

One of Norman’s most popular paintings (at least for Stockbridge fans) is a Christmastime portrait of the town of Stockbridge, which is located a few miles down the road from the museum. He took some liberties in painting in the local mountains, which cannot actually be viewed from downtown, and also included a couple of buildings that are not really visible from the vantage point of the painting. But, otherwise, as witnessed by my own attempt to capture the town photographically, it was an accurate depiction. We ate lunch at the Red Lion Inn‘s pub, a step back in time for sure.

After an evening of camaraderie, and making plans for our next gathering, most of our party split for their respective homes in Vermont or Virginia, leaving only three of us to find a still-rainy day Sunday occupation. We decided (by process of elimination, since most local attractions were either not open for the season or not open on Sundays) to visit the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield.

This is a very eclectic collection of art, history, and nature, which includes an aquarium in the basement, and a huge open room in on the second floor featuring a sort of “cabinet of curiosities” highlighting their vast holdings of – well – miscellany. Mummies vie with moose heads, full sized plaster reproductions of famous works of art like the Winged Victory, and a few examples of Bragg Boxes, a sort of early educational kit developed by the museum’s first director, “who believed that museums hold the power to educate and uplift the masses.”

I was personally uplifted by a multi-room exhibition of the machines of Leonardo daVinci, also inhabiting the second floor until next September. Leonardo is another of my personal heroes, and although most of these machine models were instruments of war, they were fun nonetheless. Many were working models that one could try cranking, lifting, or otherwise manipulating, which delighted visitors of all ages.

Good friends, good museums, and a great weekend all around. Here are some photographic highlights.

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