And, finally, our trip ended in gorgeous Seattle, which neither of us had visited in more than 15 years. We also have old friends who live there, so on this trip we were really blessed by the host and hostest fairies! Our friend Nikki works at the Seattle Art Museum, which made it easy to both see her and check out a terrific museum. I was so thrilled to learn of the current exhibition, Edward Hopper's Women, inspired by an incredible gift - Hopper's "Chop Suey" will one day be in SAM's collection. I (like most people, I suppose) love Hopper's work so much (click here to read my post about an amazing retrospective of his work at the Boston MFA - featuring none other than "Chop Suey"). The SAM show is small-ish, focusing on Hopper's paintings of women, mostly in urban settings. It's a wonderful, intimate exhibition, and I'm so delighted I was able to see "Chop Suey" in person again, and to know that it will belong to a public institution.

At the Hopper link above, be sure to go to "CLICK IT" to view a nifty interactive component, where you can learn more about "Chop Suey."

The next day our friends took us to the Asian Art Museum, technically a part of SAM but in another location (SAM's original location), a lovely hilltop site in Volunteer Park (here we are in front of the Museum - you can barely see the Space Needle in the background). The current exhibition is stunning; Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur, featuring gorgeous paintings from the royal Indian courts of Rajasthan from the 17th to the 19th century. Produced for the Rajasthan nobles, these paintings have never been published; most have been seen by just a few scholars since their creation. The museum was smart and offered visitors magnifying glasses, all the better to view the incredible little details of the works. The piece above is Bakhat Singh in the Moonlight, ca. 1735. The educational components were great - little saris for the kids to try on, treasure hunts to help them find fun little details in the works. It was fun to be there with a five-year-old...

And this is just a general shout out to the fabulous coffee of Seattle. I can't even remember the name of the coffee shop where I shot this (there are so many!) but they were such beautiful lattes and a perfect scone, I had to catch it. The yummy coffees helped me forget that I'm a temporary decaf drinker!

Thank you again to all our hosts for a really memorable trip - another testament to travel in the US. There's an embarrassment of riches within a 2 or 3 hour flight of all of us!