After, After doing a great trip up to visit old friends in Lake Martin Alabama , we loaded up the van and headed out west to deliver artwork, visit galleries, see old friends and have a few adventures along the way. we had a beautiful summer visiting friends and sharing adventures! Driving up to Colorado we stopped in Pagosa Springs to visit my old friend Crystal on her ranch and even got to visit the Belgian horse I raised from a colt. We got to spend a quick night with our friend Paul Silva in Salina, Colorado. We then went up and visited our friends at Horton Galleries and did a quick show in Beavercreek.
Next we drove to Snowmass, Colorado where we delivered a beautiful 6' x 8' custom tiger piece to friends with a beautiful new house overlooking Snowmass Valley with a view of 50 miles around. After a quick ,but beautiful visit ,we got back on the road again headed North to Kemmerer, Wyoming- for an incredible fossil safari digging in a fossil rich sandstone bed in the mountains . What a thrill that was breaking over sandstone layers containing 50 million-year-old fossilized fish, rays, turtles and marine life! Jim having studied oceanography and Marine geology was in heaven as was I as we broke open rocks to discover the secrets within.
Then on to visit mountain trails Gallery in Jackson hole to drop off artwork and visit our friends at the gallery. After spending the day in Jackson, we crossed the Tetons over to Idaho to visit our old friends from Dallas, Steve and Yancey Sietz and stay at their beautiful new home. Steve is an architect and you can imagine what a beautiful house they built overlooking the west side of the Grand Tetons! We took our first electric bike ride with them 13 miles across Jackson Valley and the snake River for a beautiful dinner and hikes of the mountains.
After a lovely visit with them, we moved a few miles north to Tetonia , Idaho to stay with our friends , Don and Leslie, at Thistledew Cabin. This is our secret hideaway only a few miles from beautiful trails on the west side of the mountains, and a short walk or bike ride from our friends at Earthfire institute.
What a wonderful week that was, kayaking in Yellowstone Lake, riding horses in the Teton Mountains, sketching bears and wolves, sharing stories over a fire pit at night, and playing with wolf pups at Earth fire Institute. iI was really one of the most beautiful vacations I have ever had!
We got home at the end of August, Jim had a minor operation on his foot, two days later hurricane Ida struck with 111 mile an hour winds at our house! thank God there was no significant damage to our house but our neighborhood was devastated losing hundreds of trees and losing electricity, gas, stores and services for almost 3 weeks! Especially stressful since we were leaving to guide 10 friends across 3000 miles of Africa only three weeks after the hurricane. We did what we could to stabilize the house and our property and took off for the unknown ,new COVID Africa awaiting us. Just dealing with the hurricane and packing and getting everyone ready was an adventure in itself.