Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park

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Stella Arbelaéz Tascón was hiking northbound over 107 miles along the Appalachian Trail going through Shenandoah State Park in Virginia. I joined her for the final 13 miles after I returned from the 75th Infantry Reunion in Texas. I was hiking with her when she reached the northern terminus of the park.

At the end of a log day of painting, Stella and I stopped at Big Meadows, which is a lodge which has a cafeteria. In turns we each ordered some dinner and ate outside at the picnic tables. While Stella was inside ordering, I noticed a big crow in a gnarly tree and I started sketching. There was a couple seated at one of the tables.

Once Stella got back, I went inside and ordered a sandwich as well. By the time I got back the couple had left. They were replaced by an Indian family. Two of the boys started playing Frisbee. The Frisbee was illuminated. That would have been fun to sketch but I would have needed my iPad to catch the glowing light. The mom was taking care of the needs of the other two children at the table and preparing the food, while dad sat and looked at his phone.

I quickly lost light and gave up on the sketch when it got too dark out. Cars drove by on the road behind the dying tree with their headlight blazing. At the time, I wasn’t eating a vegetarian diet, so I probably had a processed meat sandwich. Stella’s healthy diet while hiking lead to her loosing weight and felling more energized. She shared research which showed that eating healthy could control high blood pressure and after this trip, I switched to an all plant-based diet. In my sketch the dying tree to the right is me eating meat and the lush tree to the left is me eating a plant-based diet.

In my Eola Heights Art Studio, I am building my pantry and cooking plant based recipes every day, and I am loving it. It turns out that giving up salt, sweets and processed food is not a sacrifice but a chance to live more creatively in the kitchen.

Mount Marshall, Shenandoah Park

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Stella Arbelaéz Tascón was hiking northbound over 107 miles along the Appalachian Trail going through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. I joined her for the final 13 miles after I returned from the 75th Infantry Division Reunion in Texas. I was hiking with her when she reached the northern terminus of the park. After passing out of the Shenandoah Park she wanted to keep hiking to give me a felling for what it is like to be a through hiker on the trail. She had me bring her some hiking boots to replace the trail runners she was wearing because the tread had worn off. We trans versed some very boulder strewn areas and the extra tread would be lifesaving. The problem was that the old hiking shoes that I had brought along started to break down. The glue holding the soul of the shoe in place gave way turning the hiking boots into flip flops. I had tape wrapped around the handle of the hiking poles I was using so we were able to tape the soul in place for the day. This wasn’t a workable long term hiking solution. We decided to cut the hike short as her toes were starting to get bruised from the boots that were now too small. When you hike a lot, your feet expand. I had boots that were a size 12 but when I got a new pair to wear to the Appalachian trail I ended up getting a size 13. My feet are expanding as I slowly shrink. We started doing day hikes from the car. Mount Marshall was a day hike for us rather than part of a through hike. We made our way to the summit over several hours then took our time painting for a couple of hours and It was a pleasant way to spend the day without the stress of hiking far enough to find water and a camping spot. Stella kept apologizing but I was having a blast. It was so fun to explore the beauty of nature with a talented artist friend. I haven’t painted with gouache for years. I had a tiny travel sized palette and the main problem came from trying to mix the paint without getting it too dirty on the palette. Part of me wanted to treat the paint like watercolor while the other part of wanted to treat the paint like oils. In general, the paintings turned out darker than the usual watercolors I do. Bees kept buzzing around me to the point of distraction. I wanted to swipe at them but didn’t want to make them angry. Stella found a nice shady spot near the rocks to paint from while my spot back near the trees soon was blasted with sunlight. I got a sunburn on my left arm and on my neck. I resisted my love affair with line, but in the end I started redrawing back into the painting. Stella had a nice set up where her palette was attached to her painting. I want to replicate that some day for my set up. I made a mess and I hope I learned from my mistakes. I intent to paint more often on location using gouache.

Shelter

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While hiking with Stella Arbelaéz Tascón, we stopped at the Gravel Springs Hut which is a shelter on the Appalachian Trail in Shanandoah State Park in Virginia. While Stella was hiking the trail alone a week before, events transpired here which resulted in her decision to take time off from the hike and stay in a hostel. The story is hers to tell, so I will not relate it here. She shared her story on an Appalachian Trail Community Forum and the comments from many hikers were both supportive and vicious. That one tread said so much about the human condition.

We returned to the shelter late in the day to do a painting. Stella was taking the opportunity to paint locations on the trail that she had not painted before because she was focused on making sure she met her mileage goals. With me around she could slow her role since I am an inexperienced hiker. The final days of the hike became about finding the perfect painting locations and I was very comfortable with that.

We did stay in a shelter almost identical to this one. We ate our dinner on the picnic table and set up our sleeping bags inside the shelter which had a nice wooden floor. After the sun set, the wilderness came alive with a cacophony of sounds. A young married couple was also at this site but they were camping at a site a short distance away. They had both been married previously and had children. Their Brady Bunch family had a baby sitter so that the couple could spend quality time alone.

During the night I became convinced that I heard a bear wandering behind the shelter. I wanted to wake Stella up, but thought better of it. The sound soon shuffled off into the woods. I had a bear bag to store my food and toiletries. Scent proof bags were used to store food and the bear bag was in a steal locker which no bear would be able to open. Bears have to know that only inexperienced hikers would leave food unattended. I think this was my third day of hiking, so I was now an expert thru hiker.

Trump’s Rally Plans Toppled

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The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse are pestilence, war, famine, and death. The fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse is astounding incompetence. After dismissing prescient advice on pandemic preparedness from the outgoing Obama administration, the Trump administration went on to weaken the nation’s pandemic response capabilities. Trump eliminated the White House global health security office that was established following the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic to foster cross-agency pandemic preparedness, and in late 2019, he ended a global early warning program, PREDICT, that identified viruses with pandemic potential. Quite simply Trump ignores science and reason. Rather than “Making America Great Again”  incompetence and failure of leadership have ushered in an unprecedented public health crisis that continues to threaten the lives and livelihoods of countless Americans.

On top of the pandemic the country has become galvanized behind the protests after the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer kneeling on his neck. The tide it slowly tuning as protests have been going on for weeks. NASCAR has decided that displays of the Confederate flag at races are no longer tolerated. The US military is considering re-naming bases that are named after confederate traitors like Fort Bragg names after Braxton Bragg, Confederate army officer who served as a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The confederacy tried to split the union and lost.

Protestors are toppling Confederate statues around the country. The statues were put up long after the south lost the war a symbols of slavery. A neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to the death of one protester resulted in calls to tear down statues of Confederate leaders, but conservative local politicians largely managed to keep the statues in place. Those tides are finally turning. There are now also calls to remove confederate statues from inside the US Capitol building. Racism is a painful sickness this country has dealt with for a very long time.

Trump is adamantly opposed to changing the names, tweeting Wednesday that he would “not even consider” doing so. Just hours after Trumps announcement, the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would require the Pentagon to rename bases and other military assets bearing the names of Confederate leaders. Senator Dick Durbin, from Illinois said, that Trump’s resistance is so out of touch as to be almost irrelevant, it’s part of the reckoning that’s long overdue.

Some things need to be toppled.

Captain Barry’s Art Deco Adventure

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Once my Art Deco Weekend demos and sketch walks were finished, I decided to join a group of artists on a sketch walk along Ocean Drive in Miami Beach. The first stop n this sketch walk was the Versace Mansion. I had sketched the mansion twice already, once in my sketchbook on the first day, and once on a large sea grape leaf for one of my demos. Instead of once again drawing the mansion, I decided instead to sketch the artists perched curbside working on their sketches.

Captain Barry came from Virginia to join us documenting the festival. He attended my leaf sketching demo and he finished a sketch of the mansion on a leaf as well. We hung his leaf in the Urban Sketchers tent and someone wanted to buy it but we were not sure if he wanted to sell it. He is the most enthusiastic artist I have met. He appreciates the talents of all the artists around him and he loves getting up close to the action when he sketches. In my sketch he is leaning up against the New Times paper dispenser.

After I had blocked out the composition of this sketch, a woman walked up to Captain Barry and she leaned over him chatting. She stood there for the next hour or so apparently telling Barry every detail of her home renovation saga. Barry was in the awkward position of not seeming rude, but still having to finish his sketch. I was proud of him for keeping his focus and keeping his hand moving while still nodding occasionally to let the woman know he was still listening.

In Virginia, Captain Barry runs Back Bay Cruises which offers hands on Eco-Expeditions. He sets sail on the Chinoteague, on a flat deck pontoon boat that becomes a floating classroom and research vessel offering hands on aquatic lessons. Participants get off the bots at one point on the sand bars to dig   in the mud for sea creatures. The cruise continues with crab pots and for those that are brave enough, learning how to hold a crab without getting pinched. They then navigate to shell island for shell collecting and then the illusive hunt for jellyfish. The adventure used all the senses, hearing, touch, taste and smells. Should you find yourself in the neighborhood be sure to contact Captain Barry.

Austin State Capitol

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The Austin State Capitol was designed in 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers. It was constructed from 1882 to 1888 under the direction of civil engineer Reuben Lindsay Walker. A $75 million underground extension was completed in 1993. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

The Texas State Capitol is 302.64 feet tall, making it the
sixth tallest state capitol and one of several taller than the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. In 1931, the City of Austin enacted a local ordinance
limiting the height of new buildings to a maximum of 200 feet,
aiming to preserve the visual preeminence of the capitol. From that time
until the early 1960s, only the University of Texas Main Building Tower was built higher than the limit, but in 1962 developers announced a new 261-foot (80 m) high-rise residential building to be built adjacent to the capitol, called the Westgate Tower. Governor Price Daniel voiced his opposition to the proposed tower, and State Representative Henry Grover
of Houston introducing a bill to condemn the property, which was
defeated in the Texas House of Representatives by only two votes. The
Westgate was eventually completed in 1966.

Pam and I sat back to back on the lawn so I could do a sketch of the capitol. There are 7 Confederate themed statues on the lawn of the capitol. After a rally by white nationalists turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia, Confederate monuments and markers across the country have drawn increased scrutiny. The process of changing the landscape of the Capitol grounds isn’t an easy one. While
the Preservation Board is in charge of the Capitol grounds, it often
takes new state laws, along with years of waiting, to spur them into
action. The board currently has no instructions or processes in its
administrative code that address the removal of any items from Capitol
grounds. That’s prompted some to push for state lawmakers to address the issue. Things move very slowly in the South. It could take many years for lawmakers to pass legislation to get the preservation board to make changes to the capitol landscape. Who wants change? Charlotesville, Virginia

The Fallen

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I decided to take a hike in the wooded area just north of Mathew’s hill. The woods were quiet and peaceful. I noticed a quick moving shadow on the forest floor, and when I looked up I saw a falcon soaring overhead. New growth was sprouting up everywhere. Yet for some reason there were a large number of up rooted trees like the one in this drawing. These fallen trees would often be supported by the trees around it as if they were trying to prop it back up. To me these fallen were the only symbols of the violent struggles that took place in these woods more than 140 years ago.
8th Georgia Infantry under the command of Lt. Col. W. N. Gardner
“Away we went straight into the teeth of the murderous fire. We entered a thicket and were within 100 yards of the enemy. Yet not a gun of ours was fired until the command ‘commence firing’ was given. Most of the men were cool as cucumbers – each would load, pick his man, and take deliberate aim. We stood the fire in that wood for 30 minutes, and had the order not been given to retire, not a man would have left his post.”
– Pvt Robert Grant July 21, 1861
11:00 AM 2nd Brigade (Bartow)
I am feeling a bit uprooted myself, as I pack up to head back to Orlando.

Old Stone House

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Built in 1820 this stone house stood right in the middle of the Manassas battlefield at the intersection of 2 large supply roads. When the Union General McDowell swept his forces down Mathews Hill, he set up headquarters right behind this stone house which would be in the foreground of this sketch. The building was used as a field hospital and the floor boards became soaked with blood. It seems amazing that the building does not have a single bullet hole to scar its facade. The h0use on the hill, the Henry House, was riddled with bullet and artillery fire damage. That home saw the only civilian fatality of the battle. Judith Carter Henry, 85 years old and bedridden refused to leave her upstairs bedroom as the battle raged on in the fields around her home. Confederate snipers were using the house. Judith was killed by a Union bullet meant for one of those snipers. She is buried in the front yard and a headstone marks the spot.

Stonewall Jackson fighting at first Manassas

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With the sun finally out, I decided to skip out on farm living and instead drove to the Manassas Battlefield, commonly known as the Battle of Bull Run. The battlefields were still muddy, but I walked for miles following the military drama that unfolded here on July 21, 1861.
The Federal General McDowell had the Confederate troops outnumbered, and falling back from Mathew’s Hill, at a fast retreat. Confederate units had fallen out of line and were milling about in confusion feeling they had lost the battle. Confederate Generals Johnston, Beauregard and Bee quickly reformed the troops to make a final stand. Just then Confederate re enforcements appeared from the woods behind them. It was Jackson’s infamous Virginia Infantry. Brig. Gen. Barnard E. Bee, exhorted his own troops to re-form by shouting, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Follow me.” General Bee was then shot dead. This stand with the unexpected re enforcements turned the battle, and earned Jackson a lasting name in history.

Hooves

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I will admit I was fascinated by the Farrier. He worked with amazing speed, I could tell I was watching a true craftsman. It also takes quite a bit of trust to grasp a horses hoof between your legs like that. This large white horse was the only one with attitude. He resisted every step of the way. Dick warned me to watch out cause this is the one horse that might kick. He had to lean into the horse forcing him up against the stall doors to keep the horse off balance and under control. Also watching was Caroline and her two grandchildren Caylee and Bailey. Apparently the kids take care of virtual horses online, but this was their first experience on a real horse farm. They got to shovel the real thing, and this was the first time either had ridden a horse. They did great, very serious and determined.