Fun Weekend!

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Since we didn’t get to go back to Alabama to close on the house, we had time to play. One of the highly recommended attractions in Laurel is the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and the walking tour of Laurel that starts from the Museum. Not sure exactly what we expected at the museum, but it far surpassed any expectations. It is a wonderful museum. Of course, they have some great paintings, but they also had other forms of art including baskets from every basket making Native American group. The baskets were incredible. They even had tiny, miniature baskets so small they were resting on a pin and it took a magnifying glass to see the basket. There was also a hanging Chihuly glass sculpture. Love Chihuly! After enjoying the museum, the director, George Bassi, took about 40 of us on a walking tour. We actually just walked about two blocks but he shared a lot of the history of Laurel – very interesting – and information on the homes in Laurel. There is a purple house that is the Wisteria House B&B. It was a great walking tour and we would highly recommend it. The museum and walking tour are both free although they do accept donations. We are really enjoying our time in Laurel. The people are very friendly and appreciative of our work here.

The museum’s large collection of Native American baskets …

… includes this drawer of tiny baskets – some small enough to fit on the head of a pin.

The museum director is very knowledgeable about the history of Laurel.

The tour included a visit to St John’s Episcopal Church

The Wisteria House is one of the historic houses we saw that is now a B&B.

Next we walked around downtown Laurel, visiting a number of interesting shops, having lunch at The 5000 food truck, visiting “Home Town” (HGTV Show) shops and just taking in the sights including Erin and Ben’s Airstream. We also visited two very old beautiful churches with beautiful stain glass.

The Laurel Mercantile is one of the tourist attractions here because of the “Home Town” TV show.

This Airstream that was featured on one episode of the show is parked outside the Mercantile store.

The Workshop Studio from HGTV’s “Home Town” is in the General Store

Penny Candy Inflation in the Scotsman General Store

On the recommendation of a local we had lunch at The 5000 (as in Feeding the Masses) …

Saturday morning the church where we are parked had a big food give away. Their food pantry ministry disburses food one Saturday each month to 150-250 families. It opens at 9:00 and there were people already in line when we got up at 6:30. A much needed ministry.

Food Pantry Day

Our new team members, Randy and Nell, arrived about 2:00 pm yesterday. We are looking forward to working with them again. Today we all visited at Laurel First UMC. Another beautiful church. Today was their day to give their third graders a Bible. The pastor talked about the Word and it’s importance in our lives. Good service and after church, as we were leaving, Erin and Ben thanked us for our work in Laurel. We had our team meeting this afternoon and we are all looking forward to anther good week.