People ask me all the time.....what exactly do you do when you're out of town??
Well, I usually spend two out of four days in airports. But once I get into my rental car and hit the road, the scenery is pretty nice.
This past weekend I worked in Incline Village on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe.
I didn't take my camera out and start snapping pictures the first day. The first day it was sunny and beautiful and the water was an unbelievable turquoise blue.
I was too preoccupied with driving on the mountain roads to do much looking, much less pull over and shoot pictures over the edge. Mountains and cliffs scare me mostly. After driving on them for a couple of days I'm ok, but those first few round-the-bends at high altitude pretty much are white-knuckle moments for me. (Have I ever told you about the first day I trained as a tour driver in Glacier Park????)
I finally got out of town and out into the open spaces to take some pictures my last day at Tahoe. It was a bit rainy, overcast and grey. And it was still incredibly beautiful.
The purpose of my travels is to work with clients who own American Craft Galleries in various parts of the country.
Each one of them is similar in that they carry my company product line, Sticks. Each one is unique in that they carry a variety of works by other American Craft artists. I spend my free time wandering around their stores mumbling to myself, "I really need to redecorate...."They are fabulous stores. Each of them reflects not only the regional style of the local community but the unique personality of the stores owner.
Saturday these two little shoppers stopped by to browse. Dressed like pirates with homemade eye-patches, they explained they were on their way "to a REAL pirate party!!!" but still had time to sit and play some chess on one of our tables with custom-carved chess pieces. I don't think they really had a clue how to play chess. But they sure were cute and had plenty to say about the exciting day ahead of them.
This weekend the owners of the gallery for whom I was working made reservations for me at a very cool bed and breakfast. I had my choice of rooms, each one with it's own balcony overlooking fabulous stands of tall pines. It's hard to tell from the photo but this bed is about as high as my kitchen counter. I felt kinda like a princess sleeping in it, but I had to take a running leap from the far corner of the room just to get into the thing. It was a lovely place. All that was missing was a mountain-style cabana boy (maybe in a flannel shirt???) He could say mountain-guy kinds of things to me while he dried my back after my shower. Stuff like, "Tomorrow I'm going to chop down a tree" and "Yeah, those scars on my neck are from wrestling a bear." I like it when guys say stuff like that.
Uhh-hemmmmmmm.....I digress......
The first measurable snow of the year had fallen at Incline the day before we arrived and everyone was excited in anticipation of ski season. I checked out the weather back home before I flew out of Reno where it was a brisk (but lovely to my Midwest skin) 40 degrees. Hearing it was nearly 90 degrees and humid like summer in Iowa, I just had to stop and take one more picture of autumn in the mountains.
It took a full day of travel through two airports to get back home but thanks to United Airlines choice to run in-flight episodes of The Office and The New Adventures of Old Christine I laugh (perhaps to the mild annoyance of my napping neighbors) allllllll the way home.
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