The Painting Wall - and See You Next Trip
Sunflower Trip Painting Wall
I'M HOME, safe in Wachapreague, after leaving Carol safe and sound in State College, PA.
We traveled 4,480 miles, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. My outgoing journey was longer, adding Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York.
While we were in south Dakota, we crossed into Wyoming, and on the way back, drove through all those states again, adding North Dakota and Wisconsin.
We drove for 90 hours and averaged 27.7 mpg. The most expensive gas we had was around $4.25, and the least expensive, $3.45 or thereabouts.
I am grateful that we had no travel, car, weather or hotel issues, that we found sunflower fields, that I was blessed with painting ease. And that we made it home safely!
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Bits and Orts
Paleo Adventures
Above, Carol digging. Below, the group on her dig, with a triceratops's rib
that one of Carol's fellow diggers found.
The triceratops's tooth that Carol found.
THE CATALYST FOR THIS TRIP is the fulfillment of a lifelong desire. Carol had always wanted to participate in an archaeological dig. And for her 60th birthday, she signed up to do just that with Paleo Adventures, a commercial paleontology group in Belle Fourche, SD.
The group's motto is "Resurrecting the past, one grain at a time," and its website says that it is dedicated to helping preserve the important vertebrae fossils of the American west.
In addition to its own members' paleontological work, the group runs digs like the one Carol went on, runs family-oriented dinosaur dig site tours, holds educational programs and sells fossils.
Walter and Heather Stein started the company started in 2005, and are on the brink of building a paleontology museum nearby. Walter is a professional vertebrate paleontologist and geology graduate of Appalachian State University. According to the website, he has made many paleontological finds, the most famous of which is "Sit William," a juvenile tyrannosaur skeleton which he named after one of his sons.
Carol has a grand time on the dig (my idea of torture, pretty much), and on her birthday, finds a tyrannosaurus tooth!
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Enchanted Highway
It's a 32-mile stretch of an unnumbered road that runs from Regent, ND, to Exit 72 on Interstate 94. Actually, according to the North Dakota Tourism, and to the way the sculptures are oriented, it probably is better viewed from I-94 to Regent. But no matter, it works either way.
The 12 sculptures are apparently the largest scrap-metal sculptures in the world, according to Wikipedia. The project was conceived and created by local artist Gary Greff, who started it in 1989 and maintains it to this day.
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Deadwood
DEADWOOD, SADLY, has (in my opinion) turned into a total tourist trap. There's nothing real there any more - just a collection of memorabilia shops, fake historical buildings, and places that sell T-shirts.
But there is, in town, a very cool coffee shop and glass-blowing place in what was a beautiful Texaco station, designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, who - according to a letter posted in the rest room of the coffee shop (below) was the first person to really get the idea of branding. The coffee was good, the glass was lovely, and Carol and I had a nice time sitting in the sun and ruing the demise of Deadwood.
The smaller sign, on the left, makes me laugh!
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Wet Work
STORAGE OF WET paintings becomes an issue, as we are in Carol's car. It's a pretty big car, but it's no giant Bella, and the wet paintings begin to be a problem pretty quickly.
So I buy a bunch of plastic boxes at Wal-Marts across the country, put the paintings in them face up, then put low cardboard grocery-store boxes facedown over them and put more paintings on top of the turned-over boxes. In liberating one of these from a Wal-Mart in Spearfish, SD, I end up dropping not one but two jars of spaghetti sauce, which splatter all over the aisle and all over me.
But my storage method works, and I am able to get two layers of paintings in each box, and then stack them in the back of Carol's car.
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Big Heads
A STRANGE TRIO... John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush stand inexplicably on the side of the highway in Hermosa, SD. Each is about 15 feet tall, and are there to be seen, touched, photographed and climbed.
They are more or less an advertisement for a collection of similar presidential heads in Lead, SD. We do not go to the place, and I see no signs for it, but a site on the internet says that they are the work of Houston sculptor David Adickes, who decided to make the project when he found himself disenchanted by the distance of Mount Rushmore.
The busts are 16-20 feet tall, and hollow, weighing about 18 tons each! Adickes made two other sculpture parks, one in Houston and one in Williamsburg, VA. Apparently, all three have closed.
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Big Tires
SEE THAT CAR? The tires on the truck are probably bigger than that car!
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Big Box of Yellow
ALL MY YELLOWS! And I use every single one of them on the trip.
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Dogs and Person of the Day
Above, Koko, lower right; Lulu, center; Dr. Cooper, left; Woody, the little rumple of white near the door. Below, Dave, my partner in this chapter of my life. I've been home for a couple days, and we are all still really, really happy to be together.
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Goodbye
THANK YOU, EVERYONE, for following along with our adventures.
My dear patrons, you help me survive every day.
My wonderful sponsors, you helped make this trip possible.
My friends on FB and in real life, your comments and delight in the trip, the paintings
and the blog have helped make the experience great for me.
Carol's friendship and patience enriched every day.
And Dave kept everyone safe at home, kept me from worrying,
and welcomed me home with love and joy.
I am immensely lucky, and immensely grateful.
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A Special Note to My Sponsors
IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, I will put all the trip paintings up on the website, Jacobson-arts.com, and will reach out to you, one by one, to make your choices! Coming SOON!
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AND IN THE END, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
- The Beatles
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