Getting to The Wild Rivers f Festival in Brookings Oregon was an adventure. I left around noon to drop my car off at the long term parking lot. My flight left about 3pm. I was hoping to bring the backpack on the trip but United Airlines has a policy of only allowing one carry on item per passenger. Although the backpack could easily fit in the overhead bins, I would have to check it. Since I don’t trust the airline to not loose my baggage, I decided to only take by shoulder art bad one change of clothes shoved in around my art supplies. I am on the last day of the trip now and I decided that was the right choice for this trip. I also decided I will never again fly United since this luggage policy was not made obvious before I purchased the tickets.
It was 102 degrees in Denver which could be felt the second we walked off the plane onto the gang plank. The lay over in Denver was short enough that I decided I didn’t need to do another airport sketch. I grabbed a quick bite of a cordon bleu sandwich which was delicious and held me over for the rest of the day.
The second flight was to Medford Oregon which is about a 3 hour drive from the coast. I had booked a hotel in Medford because I decided I didn’t want to make that 3 hour drive in the dark and I knew I would be exhausted. It was a good call. The drive to the coast was absolutely gorgeous driving up through the mountains and down winding roads that were cut into cliffs and meandered along snaking rivers. I passed into California and had to pull off into a produce inspection station. I was asked if I had any fruit in the car, and I let him know that I had 1 apple. the officer said, “Apples are fine” and I was on my way.
I drove through the redwood forest with giant thick redwoods trees right along the roadside. That anyone would ever want to cut one of these glorious giants down, is mind glowing. I read the user’s manual to figure out how to use the cruise control for the highway driving. But for the downhill slaloms, I let my foot off the gas’s and let the car tell me how fast to go through all the curves. It was a fun drive with very little traffic. I hope to stop at a few spots on the way back to sketch.
When I got to the Wild Rivers Film Festival, I was several hours early and could not check into the hotel, so I drove to the theater where COVID Dystopia would screen. The theater was closed. It was raining. I drove next door to a Dollar General and got a cheap poncho for myself thinking I would sketch the theater. I tried to sketch but the page got so wet that I knew a watercolor would be impossible to complete. I drove back to dollar general and got myself an umbrella as well. The rain had turned into a fine mist. The umbrella would stop and heavy rain, but the mist still coated the page making a sketch impossible. I wanted to start my creative Film Festival experience but didn’t know how to start.