Tuesday, April 15, 2008

quick trip to napa

after returning from seattle just a few days ago i was back on the plane headed to napa for business purposes....i had a few hours to spend last night so of course i had to visit a couple local hotspots....sorry w/o a sidekick along to snap some shots i was playing driver/photographer in some of these shots...believe me there are no shortage of kodak moments here in napa valley just a shortage of time...enjoy.....

the drive in from sacramento...


a winery of course...

TAYLOR'S - as featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network:


MY LODGING AND VIEW FROM THE HOTEL:

MY WHEELS...

SCENERY ACROSS THE STREET FROM OUR OFFICE:

Monday, April 14, 2008

construction in the woods

sunday morning with kim at artiscape i decided to take a break from the office and head out to our local mountain biking trails for a trail maintenance day to finish a very very long board walk with a few rollers thrown in for fun...there are 2 mtb trails at alum creek both approx. 6 miles long - here we are working on phase 1 the older of the trails. The trails are maintained by the Central Ohio Mountain Bike Organization. Phase 1 lacks a lot of man made structures which is good for its intended purposed; however, this section goes through an exposed meadow which does not dry out and damage and erosion are maintenance nightmares and bad for the land - the solution was to provide a boardwalk above the trail to allow for dry riding and to minimize damage to the area. Here we are mid construction of the rollers...

and then the finished section:

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Looking back at Artfest 2008

After much anticipation, it is over, just like that....but it was a week full of anticipation, anxiety, laughter, creativity, laughter, bonding, laughter and just general goofiness........to add to the previous post our week went like this:

Monday - after a long delay in Milwaukee when the deicing truck ran out of deicer kim and i finally made it to Seattle - picked up our rental and headed to the Alexis...first for a drink and then for a quick dinner with Dji. After dinner we tracked down Lani who was stuck in Canada and then on an airplane for god knows how many hours and then finally ellen arrived after being stuck at o'hare for 12 hours...i would have gone CRAZY.....

Tuesday - it was off to explore seattle...time at pike's market and several other local shops...


Wednesday we gathered up some eggrolls and sushi, jumped on the ferry and headed to Port Townsend. Eating on the ferry..........

after arriving and checking into our "home" for the next three days we headed to Fort Warden, checked in and then the trading frenzy began....mental note: may want to skip this next year.

Thursday morning was highlighted by my solo trip to the beach, it was quite amazing watching the sunrise-- it was a wonderfully chilly morning so much to see on the beach itself and with the beautiful backdrop -- i only encountered a woman and her dog during my hour of exploration.





Thursday was the first day of classes and as I previously posted I took a Thomas Ashman class and made the art journal shown in the last post. Kim took Nina's Wee Book class and I sure was the class pet as usual. Ellen made a kick ass piece in Laurie Mika's class and Lani came away with a great creation with LK. The evening ended with dinner with two very special people that i love with all my heart.....and yes i can even tell you ;)
Friday Kim, Lani and I were in Nina's gatherings class and Ellen was in Linda and Opie's flat to stacked....unfortunately I have not pictures but everyone had a great day. We continued working into the evening turning our suite into a studio...

Saturday--our last day of classes---we paired up for the day with kim and ellen in a susan lenart kazmer class and lani and i took a michael demeng class.....we learned so much about texture and color...i was really nervious about this class - paint and collage neither of which i have done much of anything with but i was very happy with the end product....



Lani's morpheus box:
The evening ended with a meal at Galatea...and enough drinks to make us a little tipsy for show and tell...but we made it...and here we are.......yes, you can kind of see those margarita's shining through....

This officially closes the door and artfest and on Sunday we headed back to Seattle.Good Night Port Townsend.

In the morning before we left....


and some buffalo we caught a glimpse of on our way to bainbridge island...

Heading back to Seattle began the downfall of kim's trip...yes we made her do at least two things she absolutely refused to do...here is the first, venturing to the out onto the deck of the ferry for a few WINDY shots....


the second was a trip to the top of the space needle....


After we were safely back on the ground and lani already on her way back to nova scotia, we had a final dinner with ellen and dji at tulio's in our hotel.

And that was that Monday morning all back on planes heading east. The trip was memorable and I will never forget how hard Lani was laughing....thank you all for a wonderful time........