We (Trail Guy, Hiking Buddy, and Mr. Hiking Buddy) joined in with the madding crowd (I don’t know what “madding” actually means, but I liked the book and the movies “Far From the Madding Crowd”) and visited the main part of Sequoia National Park.
I wanted to see the dogwoods in their autumn colors and gather more photos of the big trees, AKA Sequoia Gigantea AKA Redwoods (Redwood High School, Class of ’77, yea for us). It was a fun day, but also smoky and crowded up there.
A wise man in my youth taught that one should have principles (which I call “policies”) in life that help you make decisions. One of my personal life policies is Never Turn Down A Chance To Go To The Beach.
You may recall that I have a friend who is waiting for new lungs. With our heat and smoke, she has been suffering greatly for the past 2 months in Three Rivers. To help you understand how much, get this: she hasn’t been upstairs in her own home for 2 months because the stairs are too much of an obstacle.
A friend of hers offered her use of a house on the Central Coast for the month of August. She needed a driver, an equipment schlepper, and a general caretaker, and yea, she asked me!! After some juggling, cancelling, rearranging, etc., I called her back. When she answered the phone, I simply said, “Yes”. She may have screamed, which took too much oxygen. But, we made it. Here is a peek into our time together. Out of respect for the privacy of the homeowner and my friend, I’ll keep specifics off the World Wide Web.
Sometimes I have a head full of random facts to tell you that don’t want to wait for the end of the month round-up of things learned in the month.
And thus we conclude a list of random information.
Today’s painting for sale:
Last Sunday afternoon, we drove down to Lake Kaweah to go walking among the cockleburs. I think the dam was built in 1962 or ’63, so I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t there.
It is sort of ugly, but interesting at the same time. There are nicer places to walk in Three Rivers, but variety is a good thing. Keeps you and your brain from settling into a rut, something my paternal grandmother preferred to call a “groove”, which she said made for smoother travel.
There are old home sites and even a former swimming pool. A metal detector might yield some interesting results.
The bridge is interesting with its styling in the concrete. It crosses Horse Creek.
We followed Horse Creek for awhile.
Not much to it, but it became messy, so we went back to the road and followed it into a flock of red-wing blackbirds. Raucous critters.
The mallards and snowy egrets are quieter.
We encountered another bridge across Horse Creek and headed back. The flower is mustard.
This was a field trip just for fun, not for work. I don’t think there is anything pretty enough down there to paint, although a view of Alta Peak and Moro Rock with the lake in the foreground might appeal to a few folks.
Minus the cockleburs. . .
When I got to Hume Lake, I asked my friend if she had heard of the Little Brown Church. This was something I learned about and visited one time in 1978, and since so much had changed, I thought it might be gone.
Nope. It is still there. It is a steep steep steep climb; the signs say 1/2 mile, but it felt farther.
I don’t know when, why or who.
Have one more look at the little brown church with my friend so you can get a sense of the smallness.
See what I mean by “a funny walk”??
Ever heard of or been to Hume Lake, California? I lived and worked there the summer of 1978, and again for a few weeks in maybe 1981 or 1982.
Back then I was unaware of the extensive cabin community, not yet having met Trail Guy or married into a cabin or begun an art business called “Cabin Art”. I knew there were cabins, but they didn’t concern me.
Recently, I had the great privilege and pleasure of spending time with an old friend and a new friend at a Hume Lake cabin. I had drawn the cabin for my friend’s mom, working from photos, but had not seen it in person. I asked my friend if I could have the drawing back to fix, because I draw better than I did in 1995. That will be a subject for another post or two.
Hume Lake is an entirely different type of community than Mineral King or Wilsonia, with some shared cabin community characteristics. It feels like a miniature city, with a National Forest Service campground, the Christian conference grounds with multiple camps, lots of commerce, THE LAKE! OH MY!, and a group of many fancy cabins that go up and up and up the side of the hill.
Have a look at some of the things we enjoyed while there. I have more thoughts and photos than will fit into one day’s post, so instead of Mineral King on Friday, there will be a funny walk at Hume Lake.
Tomorrow I’ll show you today’s work on the mural.
Meanwhile, you can enjoy some photos of a recent half-day field trip. Trail Guy and I went to Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park for a little cross-country skiing. It was the day after a cold storm, and it was clear, cold, and beautiful.
One day while I was painting the Oak Grove Bridge, Trail Guy said he wanted to drive up the Mineral King Road and see how things looked. I put down my brushes and put on my boots.
This week I will post several different subjects, all unrelated to art work. These could be titled “Sources of Inspiration”, although I don’t know if they will result in paintings or drawings.
Trail Guy took the Botmobile to a secret location with a great view of the High Sierra. The mountain range is the Sierra Nevada, and it is only people from Southern California who say “the Sierras”. Those of us in Central California generally know better in spite of being uneducated, poor and fat.
I wasn’t there because I was finishing the mural, not goofing off. Yet.
Can you pick out Sawtooth?
Here – have a slightly closer look.
The Captain decided that this rocking chair, more of a glider, a beautiful piece made by the Amish, no longer suits her. Together we figured out how to fit it into my car, and voila! It looks just right in this corner of our living room.
There used to be plants on that table, but Samson thought it was his personal jungle. Now there is a squirt bottle handy to remind him that our hands and feet are not his chew toys.
The view out the window looked like this:
Hey, this isn’t complete. We should be seeing Moro Rock to the left of Alta Peak. Time for some yard work.
Alrighty then. Life in Three Rivers for this Central California artist and her husband, AKA Trail Guy, seems to be about views.
One last post not about art or Mineral King. We’ll resume our normal broadcasting schedule topics tomorrow.
There are many ways to participate in the multiple events of the Lake Tahoe Marathon weekend; walking partner T and I chose to walk the 1/2 marathon on Sunday, October 9.
We’ve been planning and training for awhile.
T and I finished the 1/2 marathon with an average pace of 4.1 mph. This placed us at numbers 513 and 514 out of 536 participants. It was 3 hours and 15 minutes of very fast walking. My Garmin showed the distance to be 13.39 miles instead of 13.1.
Worth it? Yes, for the friendship factor. No, for the way I felt afterward and the amount of hassles to go there and back. Shoot, our motel was so cheap there wasn’t even a coffee maker in the room! But oh my, T is so much fun, and we laughed and laughed and talked and laughed for 2 days straight.