Another mushroom discovered on my dog walk. The scientific name of this one is Coprinus comatus (coprinus means “of dung” and comatus means “hairy”). This mushroom is also known as the “shaggy inky cap.” It is edible in the “shaggy” white phase, but within 24 hours it digests itself and becomes the inedible “inky” stage. There is a good post from the University of Illinois “Mushroom Monday” blog: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/wordpress/mushroom-monday-coprinus-comatus/
I had lunch at The Barbie Cafe in Chicago. It was fun…and overwhelmingly pink.
I went to the WNDR Museum in Chicago with my friends, Gina and Ellen. The museum website describes it as the “intersection of art and technology.” The exhibits were super fun and creative. I posted videos on two of the exhibits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhl04G_VgEU and https://www.youtube.com/shorts/grL9n1Y1r8Q
Below is my friends and I in one of the exhibits. Under that photo is a portrait of artist, Yayoi Kusama. Next to her is a photo of part of her exhibit.
When I was a kid I watched a movie at the theater called “The Legend of Boggy Creek” which scared me half to death. Years later, I showed it to my kids on Halloween, but it didn’t frighten them. The movie is about the “Fouke Monster” which is a Big Foot or Sasquatch that has been sighted multiple times since the 1950s around Fouke, Arkansas. My husband and I drove to Fouke to see “The Monster Museum” which is located in a convenience store called The Monster Mart. Below are some highlights. I bought a coffee cup with a silhouette of a Sasquatch, a Big Foot air freshener to hang from the rearview mirror in my car, and 2 books with stories from Fouke about monster sightings. I plan to re-watch the movie on Amazon. I hope it scares me.
I was going down I-40 in Arkansas when a mechanical bull passed me.
I found three very colorful mushrooms. The violet ones are Reishi mushrooms (Ganoderma lucicum) and are also known as Lingzhi, Divine Mushroom, and “Mushroom of Immortality.” Reishi mushrooms are used in medicinal teas. I could not correctly indentify the green mushrooms or the odd bright yellow mushroom. The yellow mushroom was growing out of a woodpile and may have a stalk.
At the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument in Kearney, Nebraska stands a reproduction of an old sign from The Hammer Motel in Kearney, Nebraska. This weekend I went to the Des Moines Art Festival In Iowa and was delighted by Ed Pribyl’s colorful visions of vintage hotel signs.
I saw two artistic vehicles recently. The truck went by while I was at a gas station and the car was parked in a grocery store parking lot.
The Match Stick Museum in Gladbrook, Iowa is small but fun. The artist is Patrick Acton. His match stick art is in Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museums and is shown at the Iowa State Fair. This is a replica of the US Capitol which took 478,000 match sticks to make.
This life-size horse made out of old tires was outside of a tire store. The dogs went crazy when we discovered a horse on our dog walk.
