Color and Shape Inspirations

My family spent over two weeks this summer visiting 7 National Parks and 1 State Park. We traveled through New Mexico, a bit of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. As a Florida native, the landscape couldn't be more different. I'm used to green trees and blue ocean, with many shades of green and blue represented. I'm also used to the flatness of Florida, which made driving on the cliff roads (no railings!) at these parks rather scarey. I wouldn't say I have a fear of heights so much as a fear of falling. I can hike up a mountain with the best of them, I just don't like it when I don't have a nice wall or railing that will keep me from tumbling to my death.

Anyway, back to the landscape. We visited 5 National Parks in southern Utah, starting on the east side. That means, our first one was Arches National Park. Our base of operation for a few days was Moab, Utah. Before you even get to Moab, you pass a few arches on the side of the road, like Wilson Arch. We're amazed, and immediately jump out of the car to take pictures and hike to it. We didn't realize that once we get to the parks, we'd see hundreds more just like it. But for right now, it's our first arch, and we're going to stop.

 

This is a classic scene of "red rocks." But what do you think when you see this? Orange? That's what I thought as we made our way through several parks. Then we hit Bryce Canyon. That was different, and was clearly orange and not red. These just aren't colors that we see in Florida. And it goes on for as far as the eye can see. I couldn't believe how large these parks were.

In addition to the color inspiration, I was inspired by the shapes. Look at these jagged rocks at Bryce Canyon. Also, notice the horizontal layers in the rocks. I also thought it was interesting that sometimes you'd see nothing but rocks, but here you see a lot of green trees too.

When we were in Taos, New Mexico, we went to Taos Ski Valley and hiked up to Williams Lake. A lot of the hikes are essentially ski runs in the winter. We came across quite a few boulder fields, which my kids from Florida loved to climb.

 

I also loved the algae on the rocks, which told me that they are probably covered in snow in the winter, and wet most of the spring.

How about this gnarly tree? Are you inspired by the twists, layers, and colors?

At some point, I'll create art inspired by my travels. The photos don't even do them justice, but I think I've still got the true colors in my memories.

New Orleans Jewelry Classes

I recently traveled to New Orleans with two friends to take jewelry classes with Thomas Mann. Thomas is an amazing metal jewelry designer who has been perfecting his craft for 40 years. Check out his website here and be sure and look at the gallery of his designs.

Here we are with Thomas and his excellent right-hand woman, Angele, who arranged the classes for us.


He is now teaching classes at his studio. He's created a space with 11 workstations, plus one for himself, and moveable tables he can set up for soldering or other kinds of specialty work.


I've worked with metal a lot, but needed some help with the jeweler's saw and soldering. I only broke about 5 saw blades, and melted my soldered piece once. It's never good when the instructor looks at your soldering and says "Start over". That's because I held the heat on too long and melted mine to little blobs. But I was having fun, and by the end I got it right.


He taught a week-long series of classes in metal working. We learned the proper way to use a jeweler's saw, soldering with a torch, and filing, etching, and cold connections to make a "Found Object Sandwich". Here's the soldering class holding our pieces.


Here are our finshed sandwich pieces. The sandwich consists of a metal front that has had the middle cut out, a plexiglas piece, a photo, and a metal back.


We stayed in a beautiful Bed & Breakfast right down the road from Thomas' studio. We could walk to his studio on Magazine St. in five minutes. We had a suite of two bedrooms and a sitting area on the top floor of The Terrell House.


Each morning, we were treated to a full, hot breakfast. The owner was even generous enough to share some recipes with us. We had egg dishes, pastries, all homemade, and an amazing bowl of fresh mixed fruit every day.


I highly recommend destination workshop vacations. It's great to get away from your usual life, great to visit a new city, learn something new, and meet new friends. If you've never done it, dare yourself to. Be bold, even if you have to travel alone. You'll find many surprises along the way -- like just how brave you can be and how much fun it is to try something new.

Vacation Destinations

Planning a summer vacation? I'm behind the eight ball on that one, but we'll be going somewhere. Just don't know where yet. To help you with your plans, here are a few fun places we've been to.

White water kayaking in the New River Gorge, West Virginia. Here I am paddling furiously to keep my daughter safe, while she's screaming and having the time of her life.


Sliding down a rock outside of Asheville, North Carolina.


Touring the old homes in Savannah, Georgia


Hiking up mountains in North Carolina.


Or just doing a staycation in your own backyard with the kids.


Where are you planning to vacation this summer?

A Tale of Two Friends

Last weekend I traveled to phoenix to attend a friend's wedding. I had never met the bride or groom until two days before the wedding. Intrigued? Here's the story.

When I was about 12 or 13, I wrote to a pen pal organization. Remember those? You'd find the addresses in the back of magazines. Probably Tiger Beat or Archie comics. I requested a pen pal from another country who spoke English. I got Karyn, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We wrote weekly for many years, and now we exchange about a letter a year. We've updated each other on our college years, marriages, kids. I knew Karyn had a son my age, another two years younger, and divorced over 10 years ago. I was thrilled for her when I received her wedding invitation. Then, much to my surprise, I saw that she was getting married in Phoenix. I could go there! To travel to Edmonton from Florida would take about three flights. But Phoenix was doable. I decided to go by myself, leaving my husband to stay home with the kids.

I arrived Thursday afternoon, and she had told me that the girls were going out to dinner Thursday night. We all met in the hotel lobby at 7. The other ladies asked me my name, where I was from. A few of them said, "Oh, you're the pen pal! I've heard about you!" We joked that I had probably known her longer than most of them, but I had never met her. I was beside myself with excitement waiting for her to arrive.


I was not disappointed. She made me feel so welcomed, including me in the family dinner Friday night, and seating me at the head table on Saturday. I had such a fun time, hanging out with all the Canadians, who couldn't have been nicer. What a great woman, and a great group of friends. Here she is with her new husband, Ravi.


I know the kids today don't even know what a pen pal is. I can keep up with Karyn's life via Facebook, and she mine, but I will still write her a letter, in longhand, and tuck it into an envelope to mail to her where ever she is, every year.

Sending You Some Warm Weather

I know a lot of you up north have had your fill of winter and snow at this point, and the season is young. I'll send you some of my Florida photos, and maybe you can feel that yes, it may get warm again. I took these when I was visiting my dad in Cocoa Beach last week.


The lifeguards were on duty, but no one was swimming. The only people on the beach were walkers, like me.


Some little animal came by here earlier.


You can see here where many storms have pushed the sand up onto the boardwalk. While some beaches lose their sand, this beach has an abundance.



Keep warm! I hear another storm is heading for the northeast later this week.

Snow in Florida?

I don't think so.

It was announced yesterday that Florida was the only state in the Union to not have snow on the ground. Big surprise there. We did get our share of the cold front, which was morning temps in the 30's. That's mighty cold for us, particularly since we don't have the proper clothes to dress for it. I had a hard time finding gloves for my daughter, because they don't sell them much here. The ones I found are pink and cute, but not that warm.

Today they announced that the Florida state government is jumping on our snow-less status and launching a promotional campaign to attract people to our state. I guess they figure, if you're sick of snow, come here.

Well, my family did get to see snow this Christmas. We spent the holidays with family up in Cleveland, Ohio. We came after their two big snowstorms, arriving to over a foot of snow on the ground. That snow could stay for the next couple of months.

Here's the face of a happy girl in the snow. What do you do when you're from Florida and you're surrounded by a Winter Wonderland? Why, you climb, jump, and teeter on things so that you can retrieve the amazing icicles you see.


We loved our visit in Cleveland. Our cousins live right on a golf course (and in this economy, it's gone bankrupt), so you're able to hike all over it. About 11:30 p.m. on Christmas night, after eating for about six hours straight, we took a walk through the snow. We saw four deer, and a couple of fox.


How's everyone else doing? Have you dug yourselves out of the snow? Are the kids back in school?

Whidbey Island Scenes

I spent four days on Whidbey Island, Washington, taking a bead class with Beverly Gilbert. For the past two years, Beverly has taught a week of bead classes at her home, and I was so thrilled that I could make it to part of the week. I showed photos of my necklace I created in her class in this post. But I wanted to show you just how beautiful the setting was. To give you a little background, I had never been up this way before. Whidbey Island is one of the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound, near Seattle. You need drive your car onto a ferry just to get there. I was a little nervous about that, I guess because I've seen too many movies where cars drive right off the end of the ferries into the water. I drove on without incident, and was treated to a breathtaking view of the mountains. I don't know if you realize this, but you could live in Portland, Oregon or Seattle for months and not realize you are surrounded by mountains because they have so many cloudy, rainy days. I was lucky enough to have some of the clearest, most beautiful days ever on my trip. Here's a view from the ferry.

Each morning I took a walk on the beach, which is right across a wetlands area from Beverly's home. I took way too many photos of rocks and driftwood, because we just don't have those things on our beaches in Florida. Apparently, the residents tend to claim the driftwood that comes up near their houses. I don't mean they take the driftwood. They leave it on their beach, and expect that anyone walking on the beach won't take it away. They might just leave it there, or they might stack it up into interesting sculptures. But it's theirs, and it needs to stay on the beach in the front of their house. I respected that. Although I will admit I took a few rocks home. Not too many, though. Here's a photo journey of my walks.










Be sure and check out my 100th Post and Giveaway. You may comment until October 30 to be entered in the drawing.

July Travel Log -- Rabun County, Georgia

Last year we took a driving trip with the goal of staying at The Dillard House. Dillard is a city at the far northeast corner of Georgia, right at the border of North Carolina. We had visited this area almost 20 years ago and eaten at The Dillard House for one of their famous family-style meals. Family-style is where you don't really order anything, they just start putting down platters and platters of food. For dinner, we had fried chicken, ham, potatos, fresh biscuits, green beans, and about a dozen other things. For breakfast, you've got to try the homemade donuts and the peach turnovers. We realized last year that 1) the food was still amazing, but 2) we didn't have to actually stay there to enjoy the great food. The accomodations are a bit pricey. But last year, we really loved the whole Rabun County area, so we visited again.

This time, we stayed down the road in Tiger, pop. 189. We found a great group of cabins, called The Tiger Creek Falls Inn. We stayed in Cabin #8, which was more like a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo. Not rustic at all. You could walk down a path or down stairs to get to the creek. The creek was private and refreshing. We relaxed in the water after a long day hiking. That's our new favorite place, and hopefully we'll make it back there next summer.


We liked the Town of Clayton, with its main street. There's a great independent book store and a folk art gallery that we love. We also went through their small history museum, which is always fun to do when you're visiting a new town.

While in Rabun, we visited the Tallulah Gorge. You can hike down to the bottom of this gorge, by walking through the woods and walking down 560 steps. We did it last year, and the kids decided once wasn't enough, and they wanted to do more. My son discovered that if you get there at 8 in the morning, they give out passes to the first 100 hikers to go all the way to a sliding rock. So -- after you do the 560 steps, and did I mention you cross a suspension bridge, 1000 freet up from the floor of the gorge?, then you can be part of the 100 who get to cross boulders and go over steep terrain for another 3/4 mile to reach a sliding rock. And when I say "cross boulders," I mean you have to jump across some pretty wide stretches. Easy for my monkey children, kind of scarey for me. I soon realized that if my son went first then turned around and held his hand out to me, it was easier. I just needed that hand to jump to, and it gave me more confidence. This photo is at the very beginning, which was some of the widest areas we had to jump across.


Here we are on a rather steep spot. I'm holding on for dear life, and my daughter is climbing way out of range.


We reached the sliding rock, all hot and sweaty. It was such a sense of accomplishment. At this point we're not thinking of the boulders we have to cross again, the 560 steps we have to take UP, and the suspension bridge we have to go across again.


I slid down the rock once, in my clothes, then spent the next 2 hours trying to dry off. My kids did it about 30 times, each time getting braver and crazier. It's a bit scarey how the water pushes you down. But after a few times, my daughter was standing, dancing, and high-fiving people as she went down.


This is the water you get dropped into. Isn't it beautiful? I could have stayed there all day, if we had thought to bring a lunch. We brought lots of water for the hike and a few snacks. Unfortunately, on our hike back up, we lost a water bottle as it rolled down the steep side into a waterfall. We were pretty darn thirsty after we went up the 560 steps. It felt good to say we did it, and we had loads of fun. But I may put this in the category of done it once -- don't need to do it again.

July Travel Log -- New River Gorge, West Virginia

I've posted southeast vacation photos from Savannah and Asheville stops. From Asheville we drove to the New River Gorge area in West Virginia. The New River Gorge is very deep, and very long. It has a huge bridge that crosses it.

We stayed in a cabin, rather rustic, and we met friends from Ohio who stayed in their RV.

This was the view to the side of our cabin. We hiked the trails for miles through the woods. We couldn't stop the kids from climbing down to the water. The signs read "No Swimming," but they swore they hadn't despite coming back soaked. Slipping off rocks and stepping through the creek doesn't count as swimming. It took a week for my daughter's shoes to get dry, a week until we were at a more civilized hotel that had a washer/dryer.


The creek below the cabin had an old mill. The creek was filled with boulders that the kids loved to climb. The water level was low this time of year, but we saw photos where the water went all the way up to the bridge.


Our big event at the gorge was an all-day white water rafting on the upper New River. We used Class VI River Runners, and didn't regret it one bit. Our party was made up of six adults and four kids. We used "duckies," which are inflatable kayaks. Three of the kids were in double duckies with a parent. We had one guide in a single duckie and another in a big raft that he sat high in and rowed. The big raft is what you traditionally see when 8 people go rafting with a guide. We started around 10:00 and didn't get off the water until 6:00. We went about six miles, going through rapids up to Class III, and stopping a few times to swim. The most unexpected fun was the lunch. We stopped at a rocky beach where we could hike to a waterfall. When we got back, the two guides had put out the best lunch spread I've ever seen. Now, we had played hard and anything probably would have been good. But this truly was good, family picnic food: cold cuts, tuna salad, pasta salad, fruit, and banana pudding. Banana pudding out in the middle of a river! That was heaven.

I took my daughter in the double ducky. Here I am desperately trying to keep her in the raft, and safe. And here she is, having the time of her life, with not a care in the world. She truly is fearless. Click on the photo to see a larger view.


I'll be posting one more leg of our trip -- the Rabun County, Georgia area. Stay tuned!

July Travel Log -- Asheville, Part 2

I spent the greater part of two days walking around Asheville, looking in galleries, checking out restaurant menus, poking around down every street. I'm going to give you a list of links to some of my favorite places for your next visit to Asheville.

Galleries and Shops

New Morning Gallery is in Biltmore Village, just a little way from downtown. Tons of pottery, paintings, furniture, and home decor are displayed in this large, multi-room gallery.

American Folk Art Gallery is a wonderful gallery with local artists, mostly in a folk, or outsider, style.

Woolworth Walk is an old Woolworth's store that is now an artists' co-op. Two floors in a huge building give you enough art that will keep you busy at least an hour. This is a great example of the wonderful art made by local artists.

K2 Home is located in an old pharmacy building. It's filled with home decor and paintings that can brighten up anyone's home.

Malaprop's Bookstore is a large, independent bookstore that you can get lost in -- lost in their many great books. We spent a few hours in there. Popular books are nestled against unusual books you may not have seen before. You can also check out their used bookstore, Downtown Books and News, a couple blocks away.

Restaurants

Tingles Cafe just opened in June. They make great fried chicken with yummy southern sides, like mac and cheese and sweet potato casserole.

Woolworth Walk can also be listed under restaurants, because the old soda fountain is still there. We ate at the counter and had grilled cheese, milkshakes, and floats.

Chocolate Fetish isn't really a restaurant, but if there's a chocolate store in town, I'm stopping. They have a variety of homemade chocolates and truffles. Take a break while you're walking downtown and try one of their goodies.


With any luck, I'll visit Asheville next year too. It's definitely one of my new favorite places. Do you have any favorite haunts in Asheville that I can add to my list?

July Travel Log -- Asheville, Part 1

Asheville, North Carolina: a walkable downtown, loads of galleries, new restaurants opening every day, free nighttime entertainment. We loved it! We found a great bed and breakfast just one mile from downtown. You can check out the Oakland Cottage Bed and Breakfast here. We stayed in a two-bedroom suite, including a table, chairs, and a few cushy arm chairs. We had a mini fridge and microwave and free wi-fi. Plenty of room for a family of four. The beautifully decorated common areas offered relaxing areas to sit and talk about our days.

The breakfasts were amazing! Each day we had a warm egg dish, some kind of meat, and a warm fruit dish. The only hard part about breakfast in a B&B is that you have to wake up your teenager to come down to breakfast. I think he decided it was worth it, but one day he did go back upstairs to bed.


Another benefit of B&Bs is the recommendation of things to do that you get from the owners. They recommended a hike up Mt. Pisgah, which was long, but doable for a family.


The view from the top was spectacular.


I'll tell you about the galleries and restaurants we visited tomorrow. By the way, I recently posted photos of some great graffiti art I've seen recently. All of those paintings are found in Asheville. I took them in a matter of hours walking around downtown.