So last week was my spring break. As usual, I thought I'd spend some time drawing and sculpting and having fun. And as I should have guessed, I did little drawing, no sculpting and lots of having fun.
Here's a quick photo tour of how unproductive I was:
The break started last weekend when we had dinner with Ginger at The Back Porch in Spartanburg. Everything was delicious, especially the super dooper moon pie dessert.
The weather was pretty springy. We had a few days of nice warm 70 degree sunshine and a couple of cloudy, cooler days. The current forecast calls for freezing rain here in two days. Then a return to mid 70s for the end of the week.
Zeke was glad to have the extra company this week. We took a couple of short hikes at the nearby state park.
I was fortunate enough to have my schedule line up with Mom and LJ's lunch schedule. They are very busy retired people and getting to have lunch with them is a rare and precious event. We ate at Delightful Dishes in Inman and Ginger was kind enough to come out from the kitchen to chat with us for a minute. Definitely a high point of the week.
With the time change, there was more time after school for playing outside. That's Violet posing in front of the yellow bush. Look out Cessquatch, it looks like there's a new "face of Lander" in town.
I wont say exactly how much time I spent drawing, but the rainy morning in the middle of the week was well spent. I was able to finish this new drawing before going back outside to catch the afternoon sun.
...because how can you stay inside on a day like this?
Another nice hike with Zeke at Horseshoe Falls.
Oh and I got to spend a little time catching up with Ali, my baptist friend. She's engaged, planning a wedding, going to grad school and doing all sorts of things. I don't talk on the phone so we only stay in touch through texting. The gossip had piled up since New Years so we had some coffee and cake at Coffee Underground and then headed down Main Street to get some burgers and gossip some more. And by "gossip" I mean we talked about art theory and modern sculptural practices...of course.
And then we finally got to finish our hike to Little Bradley Falls in Saluda, NC. G and I tried this hike with the kids back during the days of the Polar Vortex and had to turn back when we couldn't cross the river without getting everyone's feet wet and hypothermic. Friday I was able to talk G into skipping out on work early enough for us to find the waterfall. It was cold when we started but it warmed up a little.
It's a short and pretty easy hike as long as you don't fall into the water during any of the crossings. The reward at the destination is well worth the wet toes. It's such a beautiful place.
There are a couple of trails going up the side of the waterfall so you can view it from several vantage points. The sun was pouring in behind the cliff, pardon my hand blocking the glare.
We took Zeke and Tiki with us and they both did well. Tiki was able to ride inside G's jacket during the water crossings and she was able to run under the fallen trees. Zeke braved the cold water and did his best to make me enjoy the cold water with him. He tried to pull me off the rocks during crossings and when we climbed back down the trail beside the falls, I'm pretty sure he was trying to kill me. Still a great hike. Epic hike.
For a sense of scale, that's me and Zeke on the second level of the falls.
The kids were ticked that they didn't get to go hiking, especially when they heard the dogs went with us. So we had to make it up to them by taking them to the local park. The park was crowded and while we watched Blue and Violet run wild, we also watched as some kid dropped like a stack of bricks from the monkey bars. He hit so hard I'm pretty sure he left a crater. The fall knocked the wind out of him and when he couldn't get his breath he passed out. With an unconscious kid on the ground, G was required to jump up and check on him. Lucky for us, by the time we got to him he came back around. His dad was just starting to panic and I felt so bad for him. The kid kept crying and complaining of his butt and his wrist hurting and eventually the dad gave in and took him to get checked out. At that point I was ready to wrap our kids in bubble wrap and take them home. Instead we went to Waffle House because, well, waffles.
Today it's chilly again and raining pretty hard. Blue said to me, "I can't believe you're going to run today in the rain." A few minutes later he asked G if he could go running with me. He put in a little over a mile in the rain and was soaked from the knees down but he had fun.
So, art. Yeah. I gotta do some more of that really soon.
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