A Quick Interlude...

Gonna just interject and say that we're home and safe, and all was really good on the New York trip, but we did so much that all we did, pretty much the moment the bus got into the hotel, was go to our beds and fall asleep.

I walked 120,000 steps in New York City, and every one of them was worth it, and I'll be writing it up as I get the pictures up. I loved it all, and when our guide asked us what our favorite part was, it was so hard to say.

I'll first finish up the reunion trip, and say that in the days between the two trips, I got the first two days up, and mostly just did laundry, sleep in my own bed, and figure out how to pack, for the first time in a long time, so that I could carry-on everything.

And I'll leave you with a painting I did yesterday, it's of red oak leaves that I found on the ground in Central Park, and I picked 'em up, washed them off, and pressed them in my notebook. They're a flat, bedraggled mass now, but using them as a reference, I went ahead and laid this out on the plane.

The turbulence was so bad on the plane I couldn't use brush and ink, so I just used pencil on notebook paper to do the initial sketches, but when I had my watercolors and ink yesterday, I painted again. I've signed up for the OAS (Oriental Art Supplies) 30-day challenge, and will be painting every day in June.

So still going full-blast, and I'll catch this journal up as I can. *laughs* I actually want to reorganize this journal a little, get all the old fiction off the sticky page, and do good indices for all the travel entries.

Maryhill, Trains, Shopping, and Ice Cream -- May 24

Walt and Cathie made breakfast burritos the next morning, and it was a wonderful breakfast for people just filtering in as they were able. Poor Jet had a really hard time getting up, as he's not at all used to going to sleep that late, and he was in the last group to get in and get fed.

But he made it! And we all piled into cars and headed out to Maryhill to see an oddity that I had glimpsed from the highway across the Columbia many a time when we were headed East on a road trip, but we'd never explored up close.

( Cut for pictures and many things.... )