Friday, June 21, 2024, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, Capitol, Art Museum

We had a full schedule of things to see in Fredericton so we headed out early starting in Le Jardin Botanique de Fredericton (Fredericton Botanical Garden). It was a huge open park. We read the map wrong, which led us down a steep utility trail that we thought about returning without seeing any gardens. At the bottom of the hill, we discovered the south entrance and another map. Finally, we understood where we were and followed the correct path to the flowering beds.

Behind the "Ferns and Fiddleheads" was a noisy bog. After a few moments, we spotted a half dozen croaking frogs and some bonus dragonflies. 

The uphill climb back to our car was not as bad as we imagined on the winding garden path as we logged about 4,000 steps before 9:30 in the morning.

Next, we toured the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, or what we would call the Capitol Building.

Our docent, Max, was a political science major finishing his degree. His first question - English or French? Three Canadians from Ontario and New Brunswick joined us and we all chose English (which I suspect was his language of choice). It was clear he enjoyed his role as a tour guide as he gave us all sorts of insight into the history of the New Brunswick government. In the lobby, he related a story of rambunctious kids who, left unsupervised, had used the painting for archery target practice when it hung in the lieutenant governor's (their dad) residence in the 1800s.

Most of the desks in the legislative chamber were original (over 200 years old.) The previous house had a fire that was confined to the second floor, so much of the furniture was saved.

Up the cantilevered staircase we reached the gallery where, if the assembly had been in session, we could have watched the proceedings.

Max gave us some history about the two chandeliers. A hand winch originally lowered each for maintenance. They were replaced by an electric winch that, on its first use, failed to stop on its way back up. The chandelier broke loose and crashed onto the desks below. Fortunately, the manufacturer still had replacements for much of the glass and they were able to rework the brass restoring it to like new condition. They reinstalled the manual winches still used today.

New Brunswick owns a complete set of 16 illustrated Audubon bird volumes worth an estimated $22 million. Nice appreciation since they bought them for $800 originally. 

Directly across the street was the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. This was a nice surprise and one of the finest galleries we have visited.

Some of our favorite paintings are captioned below.

A Passing Storm (1876)

by Jacques-Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)

oil on canvas

Karen Kain (1980)

Andy Worhol (1928-1987)

screen print with diamond dust on paper

Overfalls (2023)

Michael Smith

acrylic on canvas

San Vigllio, Lake Garda (1913)

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

oil on canvas

Santiago El Grande (1967)

Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

13 feet tall oil on canvas

We spent more than two hours enjoying the many rooms of the museum and this blog only includes a small fraction of the pictures we captured. 

We returned to the campground where our Wagon masters and Tail gunners treated us to a fantastic dinner of salad, pulled pork, baked beans, and chocolate eclair cake for dessert, Yum!

Monday, June 10, 2024, Vermont State Capitol, Montpelier, VT

From Magog, Joani noticed it was a reasonable drive to reach Montpelier, the Capital of Vermont. We jumped at the chance to check it off our list even if it did involve an international border crossing. It was a breeze entering the United States after just a few questions. The roads were nice with little traffic. As we neared our destination there were no suburbs and nothing I would have labeled "outskirts". I wondered "Where was the city?" I was unaware of how small Montpelier was. Their population in 2024 was 7,477 making it the least populated state capital in the United States.

The Capitol might have been the smallest we have visited. The one officer greeted us. There was no scanner, inspection, or even an information desk.

Instead of the typical rotunda with a massive and elaborate domed ceiling, there was a lobby with a few meeting rooms adjoining.

I did not see an elevator in the building although there must have been one. The stairwells could have been in a large upscale home.

The Senate Chambers were modest seating the 30 senators from 16 districts. The House Chambers were larger seating 150 representatives.

We were the only visitors so we sat for a bit.

The highlight of our visit to Montpelier was dining at Sarducci's, an Italian eatery along the Winooski River. It was highly rated and the food was excellent. The restaurant locale had us wondering as we parked in what seemed to be an alleyway and passed this graffiti-adorned car on the siding across the street from the front door.

Friday, May 3, 2024, State Capitol, St. Paul, Minnesota

The trip from Brookings, SD to St. Paul, MN yesterday was 230 miles mostly on secondary roads which were all very nice. Of course, we had more wind but not as much as our last couple of drives. Our campground was in the Lake Elmo Park Preserve just a few miles east of downtown St. Paul. Joani reserved a very convenient pull-through site that was long enough to leave the tow dolly attached. The sites were widely spaced and the reserve had more trails than we could walk in a month. This early in the season the park was mostly empty with just a few families camping on the weekend.

It rained for our first few days but Joani was able to add another IKEA to her list in an attempt, I think, to visit every one of them across the country.  One day I spent sprucing up the coach and got it looking pretty good.

Finally, the sky cleared, and we saw the sun and felt the warmth of a nice spring day. We ventured downtown to tour the Minnesota State Capitol. More than 20 types of stone are found throughout the structure including walls of white Georgia marble.

The golden sculpture at the base of the dome was titled "The Progress of the State" commonly referred to as the Quadriga. It certainly gleamed in the bright sunlight, probably because the bronze had been re-gold-leafed just a few years ago. 

The beautiful architecture included all the traditional touches you might expect. Fine marble columns and colorful murals and paintings were found everywhere inside the spacious interior that had just finished an extensive restoration from 2013 to 2017.

We had to wait for a gathering to clear before I could snap this picture of the rotunda from below.

From the front steps of the capitol, we could see the St. Paul Cathedral close by and it was next on the day's agenda.

We were just as impressed with the massive cathedral as we were with the capitol building. Beautiful stonework adorned every square foot of both the exterior and interior surfaces of the structure.

Guided tours were offered but our timing was off. Self-guided tours were also encouraged.

We both noticed an area around the door handles that was clean and shiny compared to the rest of the door. We deduced the oil from so many hands kept the copper brads from oxidizing.

It was still early in the day so we decided to visit the Science Museum of Minnesota. The museum included three floors of exhibits and displays. We were a bit disappointed that, while the exhibits were geared toward a young crowd, very few of the kids seemed to appreciate the opportunity to learn. Wow, I sound like a jaded old man!

The museum was located within the Mississippi National River & Recreation Area, which is part of the National Park system.

Looking down any street outside of the museum we could see plenty of intriguing architecture that will have to be explored on another visit to downtown St. Paul.

The Landmark Center, built in 1902, will need to wait for another day.

Friday, November 22, 2019, Louisiana State Capitol Building, Baton Rouge, LA

Today we drove into Baton Rouge to visit the Louisiana state capitol. We had to retrace our trip along I-10 that included the longest bridge I have ever traveled. We found out the 20+ mile stretch crosses the Atchafalaya (pronounced uh-CHA-fuh-lie-uh) river/swamp. Construction of the roadway involved first building a canal so they could bring in construction materials. It has to be one of the most expensive sections of the Interstate Highway system and I can't even imagine the headaches if they ever try to widen it to six lanes.

Louisiana has one of only four high rise capitol buildings in the country and it certainly did stand out. As we crossed the Mississippi there was nothing to hamper our view of the capitol building.

There was a definite Art Deco flavor to the architecture. There were a lot of Pelicans in the stonework so I thought I would ask about them. The problem was I actually asked why there were so many penguins. That got some very funny looks before we realized my mistake. The Pelican is the State Bird of Louisiana. 

At 34 floors and standing 450 feet high it was the tallest state capitol in the U.S. when built in 1932

Governor Huey Long had this Capitol built in the middle of the Great Depression. Completed in 14 months (March of 1932) at a cost of 5 million.

The senate chambers had one rather distinctive sight we were supposed to make sure we did not miss.

Stuck in the ceiling was a splinter of wood from a desk that was blown up by a bomb detonated many years ago. They even had a light on so you didn't miss it.

The splinter remains from a bomb blast that occurred on a Sunday in 1970 (no one was injured.)

At least they know how to decorate for Christmas. The trees, wreaths and flowers were very festive.

The choice of marble and granite in the halls was very intriguing. So many interesting colors and varieties. With very little effort we spotted lots of fossils embedded in the walls.

The walls are covered in the most colorful stone/granite, but its origin remains a mystery.

Below you see where a bullet ricocheted taking a divot out of the pillar when Huey P. Long was assassinated. It all seemed a bit too much. I think most people would have covered it up and tried to forget about the whole gruesome incident. Between the bomb in the senate and this, I decided Louisiana politics is not for the faint of heart.

Huey Long was assassinated in 1935, just three years after completion of the building.

An elevator took us to the 24th floor where we were able to catch another elevator to the 27th-floor observation deck. Outside we had an unobstructed view in every direction. Capitol Lake was to the north and had a lot of open space and trails around it. I suspect it gets a lot of visitors on a warm, sunny day but today there were no other takers.

This is still the tallest capitol in the U.S. today.

Looking to the south we saw just a few tall buildings and the bridge crossing the Mississippi. The first picture of the capitol above was taken as we crossed that bridge on our way in.

Between the trees and the paint, Joani liked this splash of color in an otherwise monochromatic panorama below us.

The observation deck and its panoramic views were certainly the highlight of this capitol building. It was not our favorite but better than some others and definitely worth visiting.