Friday 7-21 Weekend Get Away

Gong for a weekend get away

We have been square dancing "A" for almost a year now and have been having a great time. We dance "A" with the TIPS club on Wednesdays and Sundays and with the Sundancers on Thursdays. We have attended a number of weekend events that require us to travel. This weekend there is an A dance event in Abilene which is about 175 miles from the house. The caller for the event is Bill Haynes.

We left the house at 9:00 and arrived at the motel around 1:30. The motel we are staying at is called Signature Inn. It's an old inn and is in the process of getting remodel so there was some construction going on. It has a huge indoor tiled area where a pool use to be and around this area the rooms are located. The rooms are very nice.

Larry went inside to check in but the lady told him it would cost an extra $25.00 for early check in, he told her we would be back at 3:00. This wasn't really a surprise since the reservation confirmation said it would cost $25.00. Larry looked on the internet to see what Abilene had to offer. He found there was an art museum called The Grace Museum so off to the museum we went.

The Grace Museum was an old motel that was built in 1909 by Col. W.L. Beckman. It was located right across the street from the train depot. He named the hotel after his daughter Grace. It started out as a three story brick hotel and in 1920's a fourth floor was added on. The hotel was later sold and the name was changed to The Drake, eventually it ceased operation and fell into disrepair. In the 1980's the Abilene Fine Arts Museum restored and reopened it.

The Grace Museum has three floors of exhibits of historic and contemporary American art. The first floor exhibit changes, today we saw great paintings of rural realism artists. The second floor had the Children Museum where children can do hands on activities. There are classrooms on the floor where children can do art projects. There is a library where children learn about art. There were photography exhibits and art by Ashton Thornhill. The third floor has exhibits about the history of Abilene and how people lived. After walking through the museum we watched a short movie on the history of the motel. We had fun walking through the museum.

The Grace Museum

By the time we finished the video is was time to check in the motel. After Larry checked in we had a couple of hours to relax before going to the opening dance of the weekend.