Author: Susie

We’re staying in a beautiful home in Denver that has a little creek running behind the house. So far on walks we’ve found 2 water falls over rocks… the name of the creek is Little Dry Creek. It is neither little nor dry!  There are bunnies in the yard, but I don’t try to paint them (here one minute… gone the next).  Today I let Chuck off the hook and I went to the Denver Botanical Gardens with my hostess Christy’s Mom Sue.  Chuck got a hair cut and did a little shopping. The Botanical Gardens were wonderful (and free due to my Fairchild Tropical Gardens membership). I ate a wonderful meal with Sue that will last me until tomorrow! Great weather, beautiful sunshine with the Rocky Mountains in the background.  Can’t complain.  Mike asked if I really didn’t like Independence pass!  No Mike I didn’t.  If there is a fear of edges… "edgerophobia" … Fear of falling off edges, then I have it. Today when Sue showed me her condo on the 15th floor we went to the balcony edge and I could feel the floor moving…. a little vertigo anyone? I don’t think we’ll see any more mountains as we head east on Thursday morning. We’ll sleep in Lincoln Nebraska and arrive at our next vacation spot in Clear Lake Iowa on Friday (Clear Lake is a big lake in the middle of northern Iowa and is the home of the big Bopper’s and Buddy Holly’s last concert).  We’ll boat and walk until we go off to the convention in Rochester Minnesota. Having a wonderful summer.  Hope you are well. Love! Sue

Back in Denver! We tried to get me to "cheater Mass" and roared into All Souls Catholic church here near Christy’s at 2 minutes to 5.  Would have been good except Mass started at 4:30… So came on to Christy’s to be embraced by the smells of a wonderful Sesame Chicken with bok choy and other wonders being prepared for us. Christy’s Mom and sister Linda will be joining us and we dearly miss Kathy, the third sister. We have now delivered and helped hang as much Denver/Aspen art as possible and next Wednesday will turn eastward again to deliver art at Clear Lake, Iowa.  I will take Chuck for walks in Denver parks and maybe leave him to read while I visit the botanical gardens.. or maybe drag him along!  For now dear friends and family. I lift a glass and say, "Thanks be to God we made it safe from the mountains!" I welcome the plains!  Well amazing amazing! Kathy’s child Julia just walked in with her grandmother, and Julia is pregnant!  So we will have a wonderful celebration dinner.  Love Susie

Christy gave us directions from Denver to Aspen and then we turned on the GPS. Both started out the same… then the GPS turned us off the expressway and onto the road that takes us near the highest peak in Colorado (14433 ft).  I have nightmares about rides like that.  Independence Pass is closed during the winter, and is a narrow two lane road with no guardrails.  Once you’re on it, you don’t really have a way off especially if you’re in a big van like we have.  At a certain point I was crying because if you have ever gone down into a pit, or over a super narrow road with your side pressed to the mountain, you realize that you have to climb back out or come back on that road with your side to the … edge.  I was leaning toward the mountain (as if that would help) and whimpering thinking of helicopter or airplane from Aspen back to Denver. The road to the Monastery was bad, but I felt I was on a pilgrimage and therefore protected from falling over the edge…   I finally had the presence of mind to blow my nose and find the map of Colorado.  I found Denver and found where the GPS directed us over a tiny thin black squiggly line to Aspen and discovered that there is a nice easy way out that I am sure Christy intended for us to come in on.  That actually made me feel better, but when we finally descended into Aspen and took a walk, I couldn’t enjoy it.  Dinner was lovely and then we had lots of talk with Glenn to whom we delivered the last of the art. He has walked the Camino through the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Spain and will be spending 2 months there in a few weeks. Bed was nice in a cool dark room.  They don’t need air conditioning here with 60 degree nights. This morning Chuck and I walked into town (about 4 blocks over a little creek) and I drank mocha lattes and strolled through the roadside market, purchased wine, salmon, tomatoes, bread, mountain honey, and came back to help Glenn hang the art. While the boys hang giant paintings (and tried to hang a big heavy mirror over the fire place) I walked about outside taking photos of the green and lush ski runs, flowers, rocks, and trees. We are done now so I think we are going to head back to Denver…  God bless you!

The first stage of our trip is over. We left Taos this morning and spent some harrowing time in the mountains… then caught the interstate to Denver. Unloaded the van with some paintings into Kathy Paparelli’s sister Christy’s house and settled in with cat in lap to check the bank books, pay bills, drink wine, and watch bunnies in the back yard. All is well. I expect to be writing all the time I am here as I proposed a book on the Psalms to my current publisher (23rd Publications).  If they don’t take the proposal (they are reviewing tomorrow on our 43rd wedding anniversary)… I’ll write it anyway and propose elsewhere.  I’d like them to take it as they did a great job on my first book.  Chuck will be driving to Aspen with Christy with some paintings on Friday. I’ll keep you posted! God bless you!

What are the odds that at a small outdoor café (6 tables) in Santa Fe, New Mexico three adjacent tables would have submarine sailors?  I have been wearing my ball cap that I got two conventions ago. It reads USS Quillback, SS424. One guy sat down and said "I was on the Trout before I went nuc." Immediately the guy at the next table chimed in with the names of his subs and the banter began. Chuck’s reply was "I was on a real sub, not a floating hotel" (which is what diesel boat men call nuclear subs.) We shared stories over good café food and amongst beautiful flowers for an hour before everyone peeled off one to Denver, one to Taos, and Chuck and me to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadaloupe. Let me return to the morning… Chuck dropped me off at the Georgia O’Keeffe museum at 10am where I broused the exhibit and gift store while waiting for my docent tour at 10:30.  Our tour guide was a retired lawyer who loves art…  He talked all about O’Keeffe and her work. She lived 97 years and painted until 2 years before her death.  He then took me around to show me some paintings. In all I was there for 2 hours of bliss. Then I went with Chuck to the Monk’s store (we’ve been drinking Monk’s ale and we’ll go up to the Monastery tomorrow). and then I went to find the oldest church San Miguel (Saint Michael the Archangel) where I enjoyed a nice talk with the volunteer on duty about the church and Catholicism (no matter where I am in the world, a Catholic church is always the same!).  I found Chuck seated at the cafe when I exited!  the rest is history… After a full day of visiting museums and churches we went to the Town Plaza and sat in our chairs with wine to listen to 3 hours of country music and watch the 2 stepping dancers. What fun. Our "next chair neighbors" had a wonderful sweet dog who kept looking for popcorn scraps that kids dropped.  He was mostly sleeping but when the crowd would give a rousing applause, he would bark!  To bed to sleep to get ready for the morrow’s road trip.    Tuesday morning we headed for Abiquiu, the home of Georgia O’Keeffe. We began to see the amazing colored hills and flat tops and just amazing beauty that made O’Keeffe love the Abiquiu area of New Mexico.  "Just up the road" is the monastery. We found the sign for the Monastery and turned left… 13 miles ahead. Chuck said, "are you sure you want to go there" He doesn’t like to go "off path" for 13 miles in and then 13 miles back out. "Yes."  OK. Suddenly, within 100 yards, the paved road stopped. Do you know the terms washboard and ruts? My tummy sank, 13 miles of this. It got worse. As we climbed into the desert the dirt road narrowed and narrowed some more. The edge became a cliff and Chuck kept driving on. "It’s like a pilgrimage," I said. Later Chuck told me that if a tire went into the rut at the side of the road, or off the road as the van occasionally skittered, we couldn’t get out. Driving a big 2 wheel drive van loaded with art over that road wasn’t the safest (or smartest). At each mile marker I’d say, "5; only 8 to go." Going in was the slowest longest ride I’ve ever taken. At one point when we got to a gorge and looked down at the flowing water – at the 7 mile marker "only 6 miles to go" I was sure we might not make it. "This is worse than the road to Hana." Chuck said "Croage Patrick where pilgrims crawl up a mountain but not in a big van loaded with art." Or it’s like the ungraded road he and Dick used to use to get to the hunting site. After an hour of that, I saw the out buildings and a parking site. "All cars park here" the sign said.  Meanwhile I wanted to get to a 1pm service called Sext when the Monks chant the liturgy of the hours.  It was 12:40 and I have a bum knee that hasn’t been very happy with all the walking we’ve been doing. Chuck said "I’ll drop you off." We climbed on now gravel and rock and Chuck said, "Get out, we’re sinking!" I left him to get back down to the parking lot… I went into a beautiful silent chapel with about 15 "civilians" and then the Monks started coming in. We chanted the prayers and the monk master took the civilians off and so I went into the meditation garden and the little shop. With a silent Monk praying nearby, I found some books like I always do. You write down what you want and put credit card #s on a sheet of paper and put it in a basket…   I’ve been trying to cut back on buying books, but I just can’t resist the books here in New Mexico. Back down to the van and I found Chuck happy and reading. Only 13 miles to get out of there.  With approximately 10 miles to go, we stopped on the way out to talk to a Park Ranger (it is the Sierra National Forest) he said, "OH you shouldn’t have any trouble, unless it rains…" We were looking at the darkest sky and the wind was rising. I took about a million pictures and we did stop to look at the running water in the gorge. With only 5 miles to go it rained, but Chuck was able to go a little faster after we crowded over to the side to let a road grader go through. On to Taos and a beautiful steak dinner with table cloths and wine!  On to Denver this morning.  God bless you

Our mission in Santa Fe: see, taste, absorb. Sunday was a beautiful day. There was a good breeze and clouds by noon that broke the heat spell (100 degrees).  I visited the Loretto church with the spiral staircase that couldn’t be built the way it is… and lasts 100 years later, beautiful and strong. We took a tram tour and visited Canyon Road (all the galleries) and museum hill (Native American museums), then we went to the Loretto Mission and Spa for lunch.  I expected exhorbitant prices, but we drank Monk’s Ale made up in the Monastery and had $15 brunches. Not too bad.  I then went on to The Museum of Indian Women in the Arts and an exhibit of the paintings of Helen Hardin, the middle woman in a family of women artists. Helen’s mother is Pablita Velarde, the first Indian woman to professionally paint for a living. Helen received her mother’s talent and took it to the moon and Helen’s daughter is now preserving the legacy with a gallery and painting career of her own.  They are blessed, beautiful, accomplished women who had to sacrifice to use their talents, but OH how amazing is their work.  We are so conscious of using the term Native American and in Santa Fe, they are called Indian.  We see a lot of wonderful colorful art and dress and jewelry here. I have visited museums, galleries and churches and will do 3 more today (Monday) but again, I’m ahead of myself! After the museum, Chuck and I strolled once again through the Plaza and the last day of the Arts and Crafts Fair then drove up Canyon road to stop occasionally and photograph painted doors and adobe walls and amazing galleries! I saw a sign for Fine Judaic Art and we pulled "down" a hill to a beautiful little museum. The artist is Sara M. Novenson and she has written and illustrated Women of the Bible and the Psalms.  She showed me her work. For example she illustrates the Song of Songs, or Bible story or Psalm and surrounds the painting with script (in Hebrew).  I took her card and information and told her I would like to keep in touch as I too am working on the Psalms and would love to incorporate her work  somehow (vision, illustrations).  I always try to be aware of "angels" who guide me… You never know – her sign was really small and I totally missed it when we drove by on the tour… I was supposed to spot her sign at 5pm as she was closing up. I was supposed to find her. We then climbed back up out of that tiny parking lot (we are in a very big van and it can be cumbersome but gets us around…) We then continued up to find Museum hill to find the Storytelling at the Wheelwright Museum. Well the museum was closed at 5pm but I knew I saw the Storytelling information someplace. So I said, "Let’s just go sit on that bench and you read and I’ll draw for a while" (we had about 1 1/2 hour to "kill"). There are 4 museums up there on the top of a hill – all closed at 5pm.  We sat, and I drew while Chuck read, and then 2 cars pulled in!  A family who came to picnic before the story telling!  Great! Then the wind started blowing and giant black clouds threatened … actually the black clouds and lightening stayed over the mountains. Cars began to arrive and we became a part of America as little children played ball, families settled on blankets, and the Peabodys pulled out chairs and shared wine with a veteran. Chat chat chat and then the story teller started with a story about the Cayote and the Skunk. He went on to tell the legend of an Indian boy whose mother lost him, but the cayote carried him to the deer to be raised.  All the stories had obedient children and the changing of hearts to the good.  Wonderful stories! We then realized we couldn’t find our way back down to the hotel and so used our trusty GPS to get us there. Arrived safe. Today is cool out due to the storms. We’ll visit the Georgia O’Keeffe museum near the Plaza, 2 churches (Guadaloupe and San Miguel – both about 400 years old), and maybe a small Italian restaurant, or some small restaurant about 3pm.  Then at 6pm Music on the Plaza in the bandstand begins. Repeat last night: get out the chairs, jackets and blanket, wine. Ummmmmm. Santa Fe: have I told you lately that I love you?

Dear readers! What a lovely two days we have had here in the West.  First let me tell you about Carlsbad Caverns.  If you haven’t been, or if you are grandparents (Donna and Lee) take the kids, grandkids and head west. I strongly recommend the caverns in Sonora and then Carlsbad Caverns, both a far distance from most of my east coast friends and family, but so impressive.  And to top off a visit to Carlsbad’s King’s Palace and "The Big Room" among others, you get Bats!  During the summer about 1/2 million bats live at Carlsbad in one cave.  So after an impressive cave tour and then an educational talk by the park ranger, 300 people trooped into an outdoor amphitheater and everyone turned off all electrical devices and we became really quiet. Even the babies and small children waited….. and then! out came bats. Now we have done this on our lake with friends Ron and Cindy. So when the bats were coming out in groups of 20s and I was squealing (silently!) Chuck whispered,"Cindy’s is better." I think it’s because we get wine at Cindy’s while we wait…. And there aren’t 300 people all around. And we don’t have to drive 1/2 hour down the mountain at 9pm… that night we drove on to Artesia, New Mexico and then this morning drove into Santa Fe over desert mesas. Wow is that drive boring!!!! I guess tumbleweed isn’t for me. We got a hotel for 3 nights in Santa Fe for a very reasonable rate and went to the Downtown Plaza where we visited an Arts and Crafts festival and I went to Mass in the San Francisco Cathedral on the plaza. The Cathedral is named for Saint Francis of Assissi.  After Mass we had drinks and snacks and then came back to the room to blog and drink wine and snack.  Tomorrow is a busy day of churches and museums. Chuck loves that!!!!!  Be well dear friends and have a wonderful weekend!  God bless you!

It’s a long story that generated the title of this piece… I’ll start with when I packed to go to my Mom’s I left a giant pile of stuff on the dining room table for Chuck to pack in the van. Clothes and shoes for northern climates, paints, brushes, books. I only took a small bag to my Mom’s.  The paints are for afternoons spent gazing at skies and mountains, flowers and sunsets, trying to “capture God’s Grandeur” with color. Chuck found a wonderful hard sided “brief case” that I put many selected and beloved paints in so when I open it, I can see all the browns and greens, yellows and pinks, reds, tans, Paine’s gray etc… many rich and varied paint colors collected over the years, gifts from Sarah, Debby’s gift cards to Michael’s, trips with Karla and Mark to “Cheap Joes…” Rich and wonderful colors packed with a few brushes and some note stock paper for painting greeting cards.  Wednesday morning we went to the Observatory and then I settled down on the porch at the Hotel Limpia to paint the mountain view with the Old Texas Inn and some flowering trees in the foreground.  Chuck settled in next to me with a book. Then someone said, “I’m hungry” and I packed the brief case, a bag of waters, cups and paper towels, my phone and drinking water, the easel and watercolor pad and other stuff carried out there. Put it all down to unlock the room door, washed the paint brush, and went to lunch.  Returned to take all the stuff back out to the porch, brush, pad, easel, bag of waters…. Brief case with paint? No… not there.  I haunted the corridors of the little hotel, the porch, the tables and stacks of antique suit cases stacked in corners. Gone. In someone’s trunk headed for Albuquerque or Columbus I guess. Housekeeping didn’t see it and no one turned it in at the desk.  It’s hard to paint with a brush and water.  Mark carries a box the size of a chewing gum wrapper and three colors and he tried to get me to do the same. “Mix your colors,” Mark sagely said.  … I was really sad, but realized I’m supposed to be writing the book I proposed last July 19. So I got out one of the two Bibles I have with me and read and wrote that evening. The next morning (yesterday – Thursday) we drove 4 miles to a Nature preserve and gardens and as Chuck paid our admission, I browsed the 50% off table and found a lovely hand painted journal called Drawn to Nature Through the Journals of Clare Walker Leslie. She is a teacher, artist, and journalist. I was drawn to the cover filled with water color drawings of a bird singing and skies over a farm, a city, and mountains.  Can’t lose for 50% off.  We walked through the desert gardens, chatted with a couple with 2 big lab/other fluffy dog mixes and arrived back at the visitor center needing to sit in the rockers in the breeze and read.  I whipped out my new book and read… “My greatest wish is that your eyes may always be watching nature… ‘Mother Earth, Protect Her, She is Us.’ See. You might say you have no nature around you where you live… Take five minutes. Look up, and enjoy!”   I was a little freaked out as I just wrote something very similar to that when talking about singing the Psalms about God’s glory – “look up and sing!”  Is this lady whose book just fell into my hands from the bottom of a stack of books in a nature center in Fort Davis Texas a soul sister??? Chuck meanwhile looked over and saw me gazing raptly at the mountain in the distance, flowering bush in the foreground, lots of scrub in between, he said, “You need to be painting.” “I have no paints.” “We’ll get some.” A Dollar Store just opened in town. Grand Opening yesterday. We moved from the garden center to the Dollar Store and purchased water colors. Well, if water colors are good enough for 3 people (Mark, Sarah and Janet) who have been trying to get me to use them, and for my new soul sister, Clare Walker Leslie, then I guess they’re good enough for me.  My first painting looks like a 3 year old did it, but I’m going to read the book and occasionally “copy” my new friend to try to learn a wonderful technique, water color painting.   See? Long story!  And once again my brain is all wrinkled up trying to understand if my loss of all that stuff is God’s gift as he tries to get me to try something less burdensome? Something new?  Look up! And enjoy.   We’re up this morning, having moved to the Harvard Hotel just to try the competition (and loved it) and we’re off for Carlsbad Caverns. It’s Friday and we’re on the road again.  Love to you and God bless you and help you to see the gifts he is giving us!

Still in Fort Davis, Texas. We returned to the McDonald Observatory and this time our focus was stars and the sun. We learned that our sun isn’t all that big, only about half as big as some of our planets and not even at the center of our galaxy (the Milky Way) but still… millions of miles away from us, and billions of miles from other “stars” and it will be over 5 billion years before our sun dies.  So… then we visited the telescopes. First the original one built in 1939, and then the last one built to observe the spectrography of the stars. Telescopes measure light and break it into spectrums. They can tell us what the distant object is made of and what stage it is in (brand new, growing, mature, falling apart, etc), measuring distances, and how stars develop and dance with each other… etc. The last telescope (over 40 years old) is still state of the art, and sees 7 times further than the one built in approx 1939. The next one to come on line within a year in Chile has a mirrored surface measuring area 7x larger than that.  So I wrinkled up my brain and tried to formulate a question… so if the second one sees 7x further than the first one, the new one coming on line will see 7x further than that and we’re talking billions of miles each leap, how many billions of miles (light years) will we be able to "see"? and… What are we trying to see or find?  I could only think of a poem called “First Flight” written by a 19 year old American Spitfire test pilot named John Gillespie McGee, Jr. who joined the RAF before the US got into WWII.  He died in an air crash 3 months after the Spitfire test flight, but he left behind this poem for us…  He flew the highest we had been – 30,000 feet and he thought there is the face of God. Please google the poem and read it.  And then go outside and look up! God bless you!

It’s not Tuxedo…

I’ve got myself a perch on the Hotel Limpia verandah overlooking a craggy sided mountain and The Old Texas Inn. Desk clerk said to use password “Tuxedo” for the cat who lies sleeping in a basket. We saw him last night as we sneaked in after midnight… He’s huge, but all rolled up in that cat ball, he looks more like a regular cat! Password doesn’t work, so, I’ll use good old Word and copy it over to the blog later.  I’m sure everyone is OK and I don’t need to check emails until I can find out what the password to the ‘net really is…  Sip of coffee and remember yesterday… Chuck complained as I made a reservation for 11 this morning at the Observatory, “I haven’t opened my book since we started.” It’s true. If we thought we would sit and veg out we made a mistake.  We got up yesterday in Sonora, ate eggs fried to order, and drove into Main street. Chuck dropped me at the nature preserve while he went off in search of Friends of Sonora Bill who was in his office on Main Street.  I walked up to the top of the preserve and looked over the town.  A family donated that land for the preserve so we have some very generous families donating land in Sonora. Found a little camp with a teepee-hut, a place to dry skins and meat, and a bonfire, like it might have been 100 years ago.  Walked back down a different way than I entered and walked over to the Prayer Garden. Took some more pictures… How beautiful. Maybe Kathy and I can get George and Chuck and Dave to help us build a little garden like that in the back yards… … I talked some with Bill who was drinking coffee with Chuck and then we headed west to Alpine. It is low in the desert and wasn’t appealing to me. Has a lot of galleries, but in that hot deserty valley without any inspiring mountains I breathed a sigh that I didn’t pick Alpine to stay. Drove on to Fort Davis:  “YES!” hills surround the town. The sides of the hills look like raggedy lady fingers standing on end. And the tops are flat. Checked in at the Hotel Limpia built in 1912 but remodeled to our modern standards with bathrooms…  but didn’t sit on the front porch as it was pretty sunny. Then we drove past the real Fort Davis up to the Observatory to make reservations for star party and for today to see the telescope. Wow and wow on the Observatory. It has 4 big telescopes that are owned in cahoots between the Univ. of Texas at Austin and several other universities in Germany and other countries. Back to town and walked across the street to the Old Texas Inn. It was so cool with pictures of John Wayne all over the place and established back in the old days by the same family that owns it today and a ranch with accommodations. Made a reservation for Thursday night. This is “the town” for now and they will have to kick the Peabodys out. Went next door to The Fort Davis Drug Store Hotel and Restaurant with a real soda fountain and lots of art on the walls. I left Chuck at the soda fountain and I walked upstairs to the hotel and art museum and found an artist at work. Chatted with Patricia and got inspired. She is painting lovely desert cactus flowers right now. Went back to the Limpia to open wine and perch on the porch in white rocking chairs. I drew some trees and the big courthouse with 4 clocks that don’t work. It seems the birds got in there and ate the clock works and the town hasn’t been able to get the clocks working again.  We got this information because if you sit on a porch for long enough, people come along to chat and sure enough, the gentleman we met at the Old Texas Inn came to perch and share a glass. He told us about the clock and the town and actually the town and fort are named after Jefferson Davis who was Secretary of War before the Civil War, before he ran off to be the President of the Confederacy.  He is the one who had the idea for the soldiers to ride camels out here in the heat, but the ground is too rocky for camels. A townie came by and the boys talked about motorcycling over to California – it’s a long way west to California. As a matter of fact, Sonora is half way between east and west coasts. Chuck wants to ride the motorcycle next year to the submarine convention in San Diego… I’m thinking of the heat (please remind me of 100 degree heat if I sound like I’m thinking of riding ‘cross country next year.) We went back up the hill to the Observatory for a Star Party, but it was totally clouded over. Darn. Today is bright and clear. They showed us a lot of amazing pictures in an auditorium and classroom. Our galaxy is falling into the Andromeda galaxy and they will dance and merge (fall into each other) in billions of years. Our sun will die in billions of years. Other galaxies exist – you got it… billions of light years away…. With all the talk of billions of light years in distance and billions of years until our sun dies… I felt rather insignificant.  We drove back down at midnight in pitch darkness as the town and surrounding ranches keep night lights to a minimum in agreement with the Observatory. Greeted by the cat who waited up for us on the porch, we climbed up the stairs over an old carpet, and slept and dreamed of Butch Cassidy and Sundance. Finally got on the ‘net in the lobby and picked up a news item about salad mix causing illness. I really try not to use those bagged mixes… be careful and wash everything or try to use fresh lettuce heads.  All is well. Love Sue