Blog

This has been a crazy week! I've been painting lots over the last few weeks so there are some new paintings in my gallery. And then there's matting, packaging and pricing all the paintings I've been doing over the last few months to get ready for the show. Retrieving and organizing my supplies, cards, tables, tent, magic books, and deciding what to take (& what not to take for a 1 day show!) takes a little time and it's not yet done. And then, on our trip to the Okanagan last weekend, we spotted a property that might just be "it"--so we've been working madly on a deal for that. It would be a joint investment involving 3 other family members, some of whom hadn't seen it, so there were a lot of messages, questions to be answered, investigations to be done, and conversations to be had before everyone was satisfied that we might proceed with an offer.

This weekend will tell the story if we have a deal or not--just when I'm trying to provide some magic for prospective customers at my first ever show at a winery!

Just to give you an idea of how beautiful the Okanagan Valley, our wine country in south central BC is, I've got a photo of Vaseaux Lake, where we camped last Thursday night. Maybe I'll paint it, very soon, in person!

And that's not the only beautiful spot in the province! A couple of weekends ago, we started seriously training for our Mount Kilamanjero hike in Africa next year. The snow is finally starting to melt at higher levels although there is not getting to the alpine yet, as we found out on our trip to Whistler with the British cousins we hosted for a week in June. The ends of the Peak 2 Peak gondola on both Blackcomb and Whistler ski hills, 6400 feet elevation, still had a few feet of snow left. The ride was spectacular, highly recommended if you're up there (even though it costs over $50), and in the summer would get you a long way into the back country with little effort.

We finally got some good weather for taking on some beautiful hikes so we decided on a sunny Sunday to climb the Squamish Chief, which is about half way to Whistler, at the head of Howe Sound. I was up there about 7 years ago, and the views are spectacular. There are 3 peaks to choose from, so we hoped we could do them all in a long-ish day.

Well, there were QUITE a few other fit young bodies (as well as some older tourist types) who obviously can't get up much higher than that at this time of year so the trail was so busy going up (and boy, does it go up...and up...and up...through the trees, over rocks, roots, past waterfalls, up more sets of stairs...and more sets of stairs...and more rock steps...almost ad nauseum!) Luckily we had put a couple of higher climbing hikes in already so our thighs and lungs were reasonably strong and we remained hopeful about climbing all 3 peaks. But by the time we got to the branch for the 1st peak (which was another hour up, then back down to the same track, to continue on to the 2nd & 3rd peaks) it was so stupidly busy that we watched everyone turn up to the first peak and decided to just go on to 2 and 3. An hour later and we were there, higher and behind the first peak.

Looking from the 2nd peak, that's what we saw on the 1st peak! And you can bet there were about 100 more people out of sight just below that lot!

After scrambling along some open faces, using chains bolted to rocks to pull ourselves up with, and going up a 15 foot ladder, up a big "chimney", we arrived at a great view and had our lunch--along with only about 50 other people who were on our track as well. We dangled our feet over the edge, dropping about 1500 feet over the rock climbers below (the Chief is one of the biggest single granite rocks in the world, and well-known to rock climbers. Great fun to watch them from below, just along the highway. And because it was such a great day, after a long spell of not-so-good hiking or climbing weather, they were all out in force!)

We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful spot, and have the health and resources to enjoy this world. Sometimes I wonder if I'm living in a dream!

There is one more thing of note to add--when the British cousins came up from California they brought the most gorgeous painting of my sister Shelley, who was killed in a truck accident in France decades ago. It was painted from a photo taken by my dad's cousin, by his wife who was a noted artist in Pacific Grove.

It does a great job of capturing her beauty as well as a bit of the "sauciness"' that had her appeal to so many people in the course of her short life. She lived lots, travelled and studied and lived in Germany and France, and loved the arts and music. As they say, "only the good die young".... This painting is exactly how she is remembered by many. Hope you get a sense of her from it.

And with that, I'd better go and continue preparing for this weekend! Until next time!