California has 21 missions, built in the 1700s or perhaps some in the 1800s. I don’t remember all the details from 4th grade, but I still love seeing those extremely ancient buildings. I detoured slightly on the way home from Gilroy to visit the mission in San Juan Bautista. It is better cared for than when I drew 30-something years ago. (Can’t find it to show you now. . .)
Across the street was an old building. It looked Victorian, not mission style, and it had a Texas flag. Weird.
California Highway 101 used to be called “El Camino Real”, which means The King’s Highway. All along are these old bells, except now I think the ones which haven’t yet been stolen are reproductions.
I have such a sense of awe, respect, curiosity, and a bit of excitement when I get to be at buildings this old. (Prolly would pass out if I ever made it to Ireland.)
San Juan Bautista is a small agricultural town; I don’t know what is growing in the fields down there.
When walking back to Mom’s Car, I took a picture of this saggy roof. (It reminded me of our cabin.)
Time to go home and get back to work.
P.S. I painted the Carmel Mission last year when at that weeklong painting retreat. It is fancier than San Juan Bautista.
Mrs. Texas and I chose to have a second beach day, this time in Monterey. While there for a weeklong painting retreat last year, I still didn’t have enough time to do all I had hoped. One of those things was to tour the Point Pinos Lighthouse, a place I painted while perched on the hood of my car, Fernando (and then fixed/finished later in the painting workshop and sold.)
It was an overcast day, and we arrived before the lighthouse opened. So, we went to the beach.
Suddenly it was time to go to the lighthouse for a tour.
Excellent tour! So much information, so much to see, such helpful docents. I just couldn’t get enough of walking around, examining the rooms, the artifacts, the displays. This might be a sign of advancing age, sort of like bird-watching, pickleball, eating dinner at 4:30, discussing physical ailments, spending money on nutritional supplements, and watching Jeopardy. (Not that I do any of those things. . .yet, anyway.)
We weren’t allowed to go to the very top where the balcony circles the light. After the tour, I went inside and asked what that gizmo is atop the chimney, a chimney which isn’t connected to a fireplace. It isn’t a giant’s binoculars; it is a chimney cap or spark arrester, placed there when the kitchen was in that room with its woodburning stove, now in another section of the house.
Some people were setting up for a wedding as we were leaving.
The lighthouse was used as a position of defense during WWII, with Coast Guard stationed on the premises in barracks built for the purpose. They patrolled with dogs and horses. Check out this application for a dog to be part of the patrol (oops, it is blurry here):
I could just go on and on about what we learned about the lighthouse, but I think you’d click off this site. So, we went back to the beach, because we didn’t want to get stuck in traffic heading back to Gilroy. (Are we seeing a pattern here? yeppers)
Still overcast, and kind of coldThe beach was littered with jellyfish and various pieces of jellyfish. Gross but fascinating. I watched my steps very carefully, because of course I was barefooted.
Mrs. Texas is at the edge of a pumpkin patch, a big “patch”. Okay, a pumpkin field. We mistakenly thought it was summer squash, that yellow crookneck stuff that prompted a friend of mine to say, “‘Squash’ is the past tense of ‘squish’, and ‘squish’ is not a food.” (Right on, Ben!) But pumpkins? Yes!
I took many photos, trying to see what was most pleasing. Some I took in the morning, some in the evening, some with the inferior phone camera, some with the little Canon Elph camera.
I took many more photos, and will show those next post. Meanwhile, let’s continue with the plein air process.
First, some sketches. Super scribbly, but good enough to make a decision.
Good enough for now. This took about 1-1/2 hour, and definitely needs more layers and detail. I might work on it in the painting workshop when/if the commissions get finished.
Wait, they WILL get finished. I mean if there is a gap before more commissions arrive.
Mrs. Texas was in California for another handful of weeks, and I felt compelled to go back to see her one more time. So, I did. (There is a lot to be said about driving a car that isn’t potentially on its last gasp.)
We did a number of wonderful things, and I even did some plein air painting! (See? a business trip!)
Since I have nothing to show you about Mineral King today, I will start with the beach.
The day I arrived, we returned to Rio Del Mar, the beach with that ruined cement party boat which used to be attached to a pier. Mrs. Texas’s mom had told her sister that she remembers dancing on that boat!
There is a weird metal rectangle in the sand.
I think there is a pier in Capitola in the very far distance, but we didn’t go to a beach there. We did go to Capitola to get groceries at Trader Joe’s because it was a good alternative to sitting in traffic on the way home.
The next day we walked by a reservoir named Uvas, which means grapes in Español. (We didn’t see any, in case you are wondering.) My inferior phone camera did a nice job there. Several of these photos could make a nice painting, but I don’t think my tens of readers/followers/collectors are into obscure reservoirs in distant counties (although I would fill the lake to the brim for better aesthetics).
Some of the oak trees had Spanish moss, the slightly creepy hanging grayish green stuff that is prevalent in the southern states.
The plaque at the entrance to the lake walk had a list of names of people who were instrumental in building the dam that created the lake. Although they were just names to me, I’m sure they matter to their descendants. I was more interested in the pertinent facts, which they so thoughtfully included with all those names.
In all honesty (because that is how I roll), I’d rather be at the beach. However, the reservoir was closer, and we had other plans that day. (Not bloggable, just friendship things, errands, blah blah blah. . .)
But I did paint that evening, and I’ll show you in the next post.
QUICKETY CORRECTION: Yesterday’s flowers were NOT zinnias; they were dahlias. I couldn’t remember the name so made a substitution. Thank you, Jane, for setting me straight!
After finding lunch on our beach day (easy drive from Gilroy to the beach), we thought about heading back to Gilroy, but there was way too much traffic heading that direction. We made the very prudent decision to do our waiting in Santa Cruz rather than on a freeway. I’d never been there before. Wow, so much noise and color and crowds and distraction from the ocean.
Why do people want to pay for all that fake stuff when the ocean is right there??
Those rides actually compete with the beach?? Incomprehensible to my simple, easily-satisfied, easily entertained rural self.
The carousel was too loud for me but the displays were really well done and interesting. So much history! We watched riders try to grab a ring on each round and toss it into the clown’s mouth. If I had grabbed a ring, I might have been tempted to keep it. I wonder how many they lose that way.
It was very well maintained, quite impressive. I love beautiful architecture, so I was very fascinated by how it looked, rather than the whole arcade/carnival/entertainment aspect.
We laughed ourselves silly with the funhouse mirrors. My mental image of myself is like the one on the left; the way I want to look is like the other images.
Someday I might finally find some sort of self-acceptance. Meanwhile, I’m heading to the beach.
A lighthouse!! Too far to walk, particularly with the tide rising, and the parking meter might run out of those quarters. I am NEVER too tired to keep going on the beach. It’s a sickness. A weird deficit or disorder or syndrome.
LOOK AT THESE WAVES!!
Since this is supposed to be a blog for my business, we interrupt this program for a commercial break. AROUND HERE, my show in Tulare at the museum/gallery, is open Thursday-Sunday, 10-4, through August 30 at 444 Tulare Avenue. Besides Tulare County scenery, there are beach paintings so this is an appropriate interruption. These paintings are each 5×7”, $100, on panels that sit on tiny wooden easels. (Take three—they’re small!)
Finally, we cut back to the boardwalk, walking along the spit that separated the river from the beach. We didn’t find out the name of this river (the Santa Cruz River, perhaps? San Lorenzo River), but hustled back (that parking meter).
Maybe tomorrow I will get back to the business of art on my blog. I’m supposed to be. . .:
…using pencils, oil paint and murals to make art that you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.
Yesterday we were at Rio Del Mar beach with my Texas friends who were staying in Gilroy (hence the title of this series of posts).
Mrs. Texas carries a bag at the beach to collect pieces of driftwood for making mobiles, one of which hangs at my kitchen window.
The sun came out in the afternoon at Rio Del Mar beach. Glorious!
These are very dear friends of 39 years, and we thoroughly enjoy one another’s company, whether being serious or silly.
Jee-um in earrings?Mrs. Texas with a LONNNGGG ponytail.Don’t poop on my head, you birds!
A friend texted while we were at the beach to ask for some help on a painting, and I responded with this.
She said I look like a tourist. Indeed, I was a tourist!
Finally, we headed out to find a place for lunch. The first and closest place was out of clam chowder (to be expected at 3 p.m.), and Mrs. Texas asked for a recommendation of somewhere else that might still have some. I said, “Don’t ask him to send us to his competition!”
She said, “We came all the way from Texas for some clam chowder!”
The guy was great and gave us a recommendation, so off we went, this time in the Texas truck rather than on foot.
We found the place, but this ain’t Instagram and I am not going to waste your time with pictures of food. Instead, look at this zinnia garden next to the deli. It was most totally excellent, as delis tend to be, particularly after walking miles on the beach.
Tomorrow I’ll show and tell you what we did next. Thanks for reading along!
My Texas friends are in Gilroy, California (yeppers, the garlic capital of the state or maybe the country or even the world), and since that is only 3-1/2 hours from me, I went to see them.
To get there, I went over Pacheco Pass, the same way I went to Monterey last fall. However, while last year I blew past the beautiful hills, this year there was road construction, which provided opportunities to take some photos. These are awful photographically, but very paintable. That’s why artists say they are using “reference photos”. Well, that, and because of the snobbery against painting from photos as opposed to creating the scene oneself or painting plein air. But that’s another topic for another day.
Mrs. Texas provided a list of places to go and things to see and do while there; all I cared about was being with her and going to the beach. (Big surprise, eh?) So, we hung out, played a fun simple game called Shut The Box and a more complicated one called Assassin Code Names while catching up and laughing, went thrift shopping (the thrill of the hunt overcomes my aversion to accumulating possessions), and of course, went to Trader Joe’s.
There were a few walks, because they are on the edge of town, surrounded by agriculture and golden hills. It is so beautiful there, not hot compared to the Central Valley. But it is a very desirable place to live for folks who work in the Silicon Valley, so traffic can be a problem.
Gilroy’s old courthouse is now a restaurant. It rivals the fancy courthouses I discovered when I was in Texas. (scroll to the bottom of the posted link)
Rio Del Mar was Mrs. Texas’s beach of choice, based on many years of living in Gilroy.
Like many California beaches, it was foggy in the a.m.
“Rio” is Español for river, and sure enough, a river flows into the ocean right there in Aptos. “Rio del Mar” means “river of the sea”.
We found some interesting items: a fisherman caught this skate, and there were a few jellyfish, including this weird little rectangular one with a blue border.
Mrs. Texas gathers little shells and pieces of driftwood to make mobiles with, one of which hangs outside my kitchen window in Three Rivers.
Rio Del Mar Beach has a “shipwreck”, which is the SS Palo Alto, an oil tanker built of cement when steel supplies were low during WWI, not needed after all so converted to an amusement ship and parked by the pier in Aptos in 1929, and currently just serving as a bird place and a diving destination since the pier went bye-bye in 2023. You can read about it here.
What are Mr. and Mrs. Texas looking at??
WEIRD!!
A buried bird, with a blue foot and one blue toe sticking out of the sand. Mr. Texas offered to exhume it, but we more delicate women declined the offer. (We may have even squealed a little while running away.)
This is too long. See you tomorrow for Chapter Two!
Well, why not? It’s my blog and I can digress if I want to. It doesn’t have to be all about Mineral King, drawing, oil painting, and Three Rivers—okay, the beach, odd jobs, drawing lessons, the business of art, editing, or plein air painting either.
This is the eighth summer reunion with my childhood friend at her Hume Lake cabin. Hume Lake Christian Camp was established in 1946 on a lake in Sequoia National Forest which began as a timber pond. From there, logs were sent almost 60 miles downstream (to Sanger) on a wooden flume to be turned into lumber. Maybe it was called a “lumber pond”. . . I wasn’t born yet. The camp is a very active place, with over 300 private cabins on leased land above the conference grounds. The lake fronts the Christian camp with a 3 mile trail around it, a dam on the east end (weird to me that a lake drains east, but it goes into Kings Canyon instead of the Pacific Ocean), with a Forest Service campground, fishing, and two ways in and out of the area.
This is looking northeast, past the dam into the majestic spires of Kings Canyon.
A large amount of time was spent on this deck.
A fair amount of time was also spent indoors. It was a hot weekend. An entire day was spent waiting for a tree crew to finish limbing and dropping trees around the cabin; we needed to be present but it was somewhat treacherous outdoors.
There were several walks around the lake.
We had a nice afternoon on the lake. There were kayaks, paddle boards, canoes, but I pushed for a rowboat so I could do the rowing. Eventually my two pals couldn’t stand the idleness of passenger living, and I had to share the oars.
On a somewhat solitary walk around the lake (my companions declined but there were plenty of strangers), I left the trail and followed the road back to camp because I wanted to see the cabins on Forest Service land. (Does this surprise you?)
We had other adventures, much conversation and laughter, good food (but almost no sweets because we are all fighting sugar, which took remarkable restraint since Hume’s Snack Shack is known for its milkshakes), some excellent Bible teaching (it is a big deal Christian camp so there are always outstanding speakers available), and there were a handful of moments of What Happens at Hume Stays at Hume.
See you next year, Hume Lake (if my dear friend from childhood chooses to continue our tradition.)
P.S. OF COURSE it was a business trip, my first in Mom’s Car. (That’s the car’sname for now.)
We passed this air museum multiple times on this day of geographical challenges. It is enormous, and finally, I shot a photo through the windshield (as a passenger, fret not).
This beach is known for a giant sand dune. I climbed it two other times and wanted to test myself, SIXTEEN YEARS LATER. (I’ve never been this old before.) It’s the mostly bare one with a little group of trees on the top left.
I followed these people (whom I didn’t know), and when it got too slip-and-slide, I resorted to using my hands too, after watching one of those folks get up that way. It was not dignified, but I only knew my sister, and she’s seen me in many undignified situations through our years.
Looking back down from the top.
This is looking over onto the other side. I don’t know those people.
It is pretty doggone fun to step-and-sink-and-slide back down. My sister is a tiny speck down there somewhere.
There was a less steep way to ascend, a bit of a trail, so I went back up that about 1/2 way to the top for a second thrill of step-and-sink-and-slide back down. It was on the pretense of accompanying my sister that way up, but I really just wanted to descend another time.
After we left the beach, our old friend called. She said she was so very sorry to have missed us, but that she was in town picking up flyers for the service.
“WHAT SERVICE?”
Oh, wow, oh no, her husband died. My wiser older sister put on her pastor’s wife hat, flipped a U, and we drove on those now familiar roads straight back to see her.
It was a very good decision.
It was a very good day.
P.S. I let my sister drive the whole day because she will miss that car and because she supposedly knew where we were going and because I wanted to sight-see.
On my beach day in Oregon, we visited two beaches and one lighthouse.
We didn’t have a paper map, the cell service was spotty, I’m not very good at that electronic navigation stuff (who wants to operate a cell phone when the scenery looks like this?), and we were rather geographically challenged. Eventually we found the lighthouse.
On the trail down to the lighthouse.
The beach AND wildflowers—could life possibly get any better?!?
I don’t know those people.
We had to wait another 1/2 hour for a tour of the lighthouse, but there was another beach calling us. So, we headed back up to the car. It was hard to leave, but it is always hard for me to leave any beach or lighthouse.
