Thursday, May 21, 2015

More Business Travel

This time I drove to Oklahoma City for an engineering committee meeting. After the day's meeting I like to stroll through the Brickyard, which is a neat area of restaurants, bars and retail stores. They even have a small canal system. However, we had tons of rain this week in the country's midsection. The rain kept me pinned down to the motel's area. I could stroll out some between rain sessions but didn't want to get too far away in case it started up again. Wasn't dressed for it.

For the first day's lunch break I stole away and discovered this American Banjo Museum. What a jewel! They covered the four string banjo the best (it started as a 4-string collection) but had a nice selection of bluegrass banjos, too. They had early banjos or mock-ups thereof, and four long necks from the '60s (Kingston Trio and Pete Seeger style). They did not cover the open-back flailing banjo, though. All the displays were museum quality. They've spend $5 M on it so far.

Next day I HAD to get out, so I skipped over to a Starbucks for a pastry and a sketch. It was cold and misty so I couldn't sketch the Banjo Museum face like I wanted. I fixed that, though, when the meeting ended at noon and I went back to the Museum. Had another chat with the staff. Picked on a couple banjos on display for patrons to use. Bought a banjo T-shirt. Then on the road for home.

3 comments:

winna said...

what a great job--your work get better and better with each post...love your colors and attention to great details...I sat beside Pete Seeger at a Newport Folk Festival, not realizing it at first....he was being interviewed about a visit he had just made to an ailing Woody Guthrie....Pete was the "man" back then....I loved to do Up and Down My Dirty Stream and Little Boxes On The Hillsides.. still remember the words etc....

john.p said...

Thanks, winna. And Pete was great. Wish I could have seen a live performance. He was sure influential.

winna said...

I would recommend on line Craftsy classes, if you want to do such a thing---they are good and a lot are on sale right now ($19.99)...you can buy one and take it at your leisure..go as fast or slow as you want..good videos etc...so that's a plus...the site itself is friendlier to use than the Sketchbook Skool one is, for me