Boston ~ Day 11
Catching Up
Liz and I took separate paths at this point for a couple of days. My brother Kevin, who I have not seen in several years, lives in Hamden, CT and works at Yale as a curator for the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. I took a bus to New Haven, then went to Kevin’s house in Hamden to spend the weekend and catch up on things while Liz spent time with Cory and Annie as well as Casey who arrived in Boston yesterday just before I left for Hamden.
Hamden
Kevin has a wonderful home in Hamden that sits on a small lake that was created when Eli Whitney built a dam to utilize the water to run machinery. Kevin and I visited a bit more this morning as it was fairly late last night when I arrived. We had made plans to visit Beinecke in the afternoon today, and Kevin suggested a hike near the Eli Whitney Museum. We had a great hike and checked out the museum. We hiked to the top of East Rock where great views of New Haven can normally be seen, but it was quite foggy this morning so we didn’t see much.
Yale
After the hike, we returned to Kevin’s house and cleaned up a bit before heading to Yale to see where Kevin works. Beinecke is fascinating. The structure itself is truly amazing and I really enjoyed learning about the books and what Kevin does. They have books from the earliest writings ever put in book form, dating back to the 1400s as well as rare 20th century books and manuscripts. I learned about the exhibitions that are done there by Kevin as well as others and what is involved with doing that. It was a glimpse into a whole different world.
He showed me around campus and told me about what we were seeing. We took a quick walk through the Yale University Art Gallery where I saw some more work by Monet and Van Gogh as well as exhibits from around the world. the facility is very much like the Boston Fine Art Museum Liz and I visited earlier on this trip.