It's a Colorful Painting Festival at the Horseshoe Lodge

We've just completed 9 days of painting fun with volunteers coming from all over to help us paint the 21 rooms and 340 feet of hallway : one coat of primer and one and two coats in some rooms. YES..IT'S HUGE AND PAINT IS FLYING EVERYWHERE.

Plus on Saturday local artists came to create murals and others special art pieces to grace some of the rooms. This is going to make the Retreat Center at MPEC the place to come for rest, learning, and inspiration. Here are some of the views of the past few days.

The hallway was killer...and took primer plus paint by the 5 gallon bucket.
Here is our weekend Park Caretaker Beth Walsh donating time to help with the task.

It got fun when the Artists arrived to get creative. Pictured above is two of them in the Celestial Seasons room that will inspire it's guests to contemplate the night sky.

Butterflies are important ways to learn about Nature and are something we teach about at MPEC. What a better way to help people see some of the local species than to create a Butterfly Bath for moments of contemplation at the end of a long hiking day?

Even some of the much neglected historic picnic tables cried out for sanding and paint renewal and our volunteers popped to it and responded with gusto.

AND NEXT? the 25 new doors arrived and Tuesday, August 18 the staining and polyurethaning of all of them will begin. stop in for an hour before your hike if you can...every hour could help make a huge difference with these doors