Sometimes a Road Trip is a journey of necessity. I took such a trip last week when I left my lifelong home in the SF Bay Area to take up new (and more affordable) digs on the northern Olympic Peninsula. On such a trip one usually does not do a lot of sight seeing due to the pile of the odds and ends of one’s life in the back seat of the car.
Still there is beauty and surprise to be encountered along the way.
evening colors
I wonder about this rest stop. Presumably it is advisable to let one’s pet get thoroughly wet before getting back in the car!
pet rest stop
Morning frost
morning frost
afternoon mist
misty day
and incongruity in a glimpse.
dog’s best friend
There are fears to be confronted. (This is a biggie for me.)
Breakdown
There are social issues to be mulled
Begging
and marital concerns to be pondered.
two-way road
There is beauty such as is found on calendars.
Mt. Shasta in the morning
And there is beauty to spite the real world.
Another view of Mt. Shasta
There is that heady sensation called ALMOST THERE .
Quinault River bridge
Finally, after three days, my new home. We’re supposed to be able to see Canada from the front windows.
Oola, Mom’s Memorial Chihuahua, and I are on our way to New Mexico to see an artist/friend of mine and maybe revisit Chaco Canyon if flash floods don’t bar the way.
It is time to get some horizons into my eyes after an intense semester of staring into a light bulb (read: computer screen). Time to smell pine resin, sage brush, wind instead of diesel fuel. Time to listen to Nothing.
Last night we had LOTS to listen to courtesy of “Sand by the Ton”, the Roaring Twenties at American Steel in Oakland. To quote them, the venue included “2 one hundred foot water slides, 300 tones of sand, eight swimming pools, nine stages including live music, electronic music state. Bluegrass and Circus arts, Giant foam wars bathtub. Carnival midway and side shows. Giant sand sculpture. Thousands of your closest friends…”
It went on all day and well into the night. Mr. Rioso and I had visited earlier in the week and were highly impressed by a whole lot of Big Art going on that involved heaving moving equipment, steel and fire. We watched the development of Sand Sculpture by “the Sand Guy” Kirk.
Kirk's Castle
Then there were the Giganomous sculptures that spout fire.
Iron Woman who breaths fireVolunteers disguising the foundations of a 20+ ft. high dandylion sculpture that spouts fire
Mr. Rioso and I went back later that evening. (Oola was comforting Katrin the Great, our cat, whose ears were laid back most of the evening, at least that’s what we saw when she came out from her hiding place under the etching press.) There were probably thousands of young folk, many dressed up in 20’s fashion, heading into the giant American Steel buildings to experience Art. I sensed a LOT of testosterone, but that has worked in a fairly satisfactory manner in the process of keeping the earth populated over eons. (There was a Deadwood style bordello construction inside one of the halls.) But the SOUND. It could be heard a mile away! So glad they stopped at 1AM.
Is it art? Certainly art is always evolving, and to remain alive as an artist, one must be attentive to it’s new forms. Is the Circus an art form? It certainly can be. Tolouse Lautrec was making a buck, but we call Jane Avril lifting her leg high to the bass player “art” now. I am of two minds, mostly because the loudness of it annoyed me.
If the organizers of this event have any sense, they will take it on the road.
But…I digress. It is now, and we are on our way to see Big pine trees, huge silent vistas, and maybe hear a thunderstorm.
