We were invited to spend the afternoon with about 15 other mini schnauzers for a Memorial Day cookout, and we couldn’t turn down the opportunity to let Riesling off leash in a fenced backyard.

Did I mention the 15 other schnauzers?

To tire her out a bit we took a long walk around the North Carolina Museum of Art campus to take in some outdoor sculpture, like Gyre by Thomas Sayre.

Riesling was pretty tired afterwards, so we took a quick break in the shady Lowe’s Pavilion.

Thanks to our trackstick and Google Earth, I know we walked 1.7 miles.

With a panting schnauzer in the backseat, we continued up to North Raleigh for the party. North Carolina Schnauzer Rescue volunteers Eve and Bob hosted the cookout with generous amounts of food and libations.

Of course, there was a lot of excitement with each new arrival…

Riesling behaved herself quite well and managed to be far away from most of the scuffles while looking angelic.

It’s always interesting to see all of the different schnauzer personalities, including Kayla, an absolute sweetie who is available for adoption, check out her profile here.

This evening we spent some time looking at works by Monet and others at the North Carolina Museum of Art. We prefer to go to these special exhibitions on Member Mondays when it’s not nearly as crowded.

While the Impressionism movement is not my favorite (we saw several dozen works by Monet last year), I can appreciate the style. I had two favorites. “The End of the Working Day” by Breton was incredible in person. The canvas is massive and the intense light of the sun and detailed shade was magnificent. This photo, frankly, doesn’t do it justice.

My other favorite was “On the Heights” by Curran. The play of light and darks in the girl’s faces is lovely and I really like the paint strokes in the sky.