We woke up to a drizzly rainy morning. Patti’s mom gave us towels and we were able to go out in the rain and clean some of the gravel road dust off the car from yesterday.
After a nice lunch of leftovers, Patti and Dick went off to downtown Rochester. So many things to see in this medical destination city (The World Famous Mayo Clinic) are under construction right now. So it was a bit of a challenge to find parking, but finally we did.
We walked down the street and Patti had to take her picture with the downtown Rochester big graphic sign. What fun. We also saw the huge bronze doors of the Plummer Bldg which was one of the early Mayo Clinic buildings.
Where we were going was to the Mayo Clinic, Mayo Building. There we spent some time in the Heritage Museum where we learned more about the Mayo Brothers and the original hospital that started right around the time of the Civil War. It was done with the assistance of some Roman Catholic nuns, who promised they would build the hospital and provide nursing if the doctors may would staff it providing the medical care. The doctors were at first skeptical because Rochester was a small town, not close to any large cities. But the head of the sisters felt strongly that it would be successful. Another version of if you build it, they will come. This proved to be true.
There are many interesting things in the museum, including a focus on how the Mayo brothers loved ships, as well as automobiles and road trips. Mayo has had a strong relationship with many US presidents. The museum was well done and quite interesting.
But the main event that we were there for was the tour of the Mayo Clinic art collection. We had a very fine former clinic employee, Sarah, who spent about an hour and a half walking us through a whole variety of beautiful art, much of which should probably be in a museum. Sarah was especially interested in the stories behind the artwork, which fit our interests well.
The collection had all kinds of pieces ranging from ancient Roman mosaics to more modern prints of Andy Warhol. A centerpiece was one of the beautiful chandeliers done by Seattle artist Dale Chihuly. We have seen his blown glass in many places, including at his museum in Seattle. There was also a large bronze, naked man statue entitled “Man and Freedom”. Dick quickly identified that we had seen work by the same sculptor, Ivan Mestrovic, when we were in Split, Croatia several years ago.
One of the more interesting sculptures that we saw was entitled Shamrock, created by Harry Bertoia. This was created out of braised copper and it had the interesting quality of picking up sounds and vibrations, and making the metal leaves of the plant vibrate. This was one of the pieces of art that was really encouraged that people should touch it. Quite intriguing.
And then there was a stunning larger-than-life bronze statue done by Rodin. There was an interesting story about the statue and about how a male doctor ended up, convincing a benefactor to donate this wonderful statue to the collection.
It was very clear that there was so much more wonderful art throughout extensive Mayo Clinic complexes, but we got a great taste
Then, we left downtown Rochester and went and picked up our niece, Maria. She’s home from college for the summer and we were so glad to have a chance to see her and have a nice dinner together. It was fun to catch up on her adventures and everything that she has been doing since we last saw her. She was excited to paint the basement rooms of the family house.
Then, the three of us plus Patti‘s mom Joan went off to watch Maria‘s brother, Isaac, play some really high-level pickleball. Patti and Dick and Joan had never seen pickleball played before and were appreciative of Maria and Isaac‘s help in understanding the rules and scoring. Isaac has really been enjoying playing a lot of pickleball as well as volleyball both while he was in college and since he’s graduated as an engineer. We had a nice cheering section for Isaac and his partner who won all their matches. Pickleball is a fun combination of tennis and ping-pong, with a little bit of badminton thrown in. The ball looks like a yellow tennis ball, but is indeed a wiffle ball of hard plastic They use a paddle similar to a large ping-pong paddle. We all had a great time watching and cheering Isaac on.
For a day that started out dreary, there were a lot of really fun parts of it. It ended up in the sunshine.
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