Travel Sketches | Idle Minutes

Category Archives: Travel Sketches

Great Falls of the Yellowstone

01-Feb-08

Second to Old Faithful, The Great Falls of The Yellowstone is the most visited place in the park. There are a couple of vantage points and I believe you can get up close via a trail. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time for the hike.

When one takes a look at these falls from a distance, you can still hear them and see the mist rising from the roiling pool below. There is an enormous amount of energy in all that moving water. The resulting canyon is beautiful and textured with randomly undulating cliffs and washes dotted with Ponderosa pines. As with the Grand Prismatic Spring, you enter that unhindered place in the mind where you just observe and wonder…and pause. No cares, no worries, just beauty.

This piece is up for auction on eBay if you are interested.

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Yellowstone - Grand Prismatic Spring

31-Jan-08

This is another quick post from the Yellowstone trip we took in 2000. As I mentioned in the last post, Yellowstone presents other-worldly landscapes.

Grand Prismatic Spring is in the Midway Geyser Basin alongside the Firehole River. It’s the largest hot spring in the U.S. and third largest in the world.

You just want to stand there like a zombie and stare at it. The tourists around you suddenly seem to be very distant as your mind lets go of your troubles and concerns and you enter a zone of non-thought. Many places in nature provide that sort of solace. We’re blessed here in North America with an abundance of them.

This little painting is up for auction at eBay if you are interested.

Also filed in ACEO Art Cards, Landscapes, National Parks, Nature | | Comments (6) »

Rose Hips

21-Sep-07

Sorry for the delay in posting. I got tied up in regular life for a bit. Now to resume the travel sketches from Maine…

Everywhere we went in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park there seemed to be these shrubs with little red thingys on them. I would say they look like itty-bitty tomatoes.

My dear wife enlightened me. They were Rose Hips.

“Why do they call them hips dear?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they look like hips.”
“Good answer dear. I have no idea what you mean by that.”
“Me neither.”

That was the limited discussion we had on the matter. Even so, I was somehow captivated by the little stinkers and decided to sketch them. These were at Thunder Hole, which is a place on the rocky coast where the waves crash into a large pocket in the rocks and create, well, a thunderous noise…I suppose. The tide was out and no thunder was being produced.

Even so, it seemed a place where shrubs of any type might not have an easy life.

With no thunder in the making, I began to observe the effort undertaken by the Park Service to produce the long concrete stairway, worked right into the rocky landscape, right down to the hole itself, complete with a nice viewing deck.

One would no doubt get drenched standing on that deck when thunder production is taking place.

The stairway had a very nice stainless steel railing all the way around it. Very expensive and not the first one, as sawn off rusty nubs of steel posts sat grouted in the rocks beside the existing railing. Evidence of previously failed design and installation.

I admired the effort because with the harsh environment of the salt water and air, even the stainless steel railing suffers from rust and broken welds. In other words, the whole thing was a real design challenge in the first place and remains a maintenance challenge even with the use of stainless steel. But the Park Service thought we citizens would enjoy the ability to get right down on top of such a natural experience and took up the challenge. A fine job they did and still do. You and I would not otherwise be able to safely view and experience first hand “the thunder”. It’s a good thing…and educational thing…and enlightening thing, to get that close to harsh, secret places in nature.

I suppose I should have sketched the stairway, considering all the effort that went into its creation.

But the Rose Hips…they set footing there at Thunder Hole without the aide of the Park Service. They were alive and stable in the same tough environment that the stainless steel was having trouble with. I wished to myself, as I studied them up close along the stair walk, that I was as tough as them. And yet still somehow able to be…rosy.

So I sketched them.

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Acadia National Park, Sand Beach

13-Sep-07

Acadia National Park, like all our National Parks, is a truly beautiful place. Perhaps the rocky coast is the most enjoyable for me. There is just so much character in the cliffs where the land meets the sea.

This particular little spot was called Sand Beach. It is exactly that. It sits in a cove between where the sea comes to meet the rocky cliffs on either side. It’s a crescent shaped semi-circle of coarse sand, cozy but roomy enough to wander.

And wander we did. We were the only beings there on a September Thursday evening just before dusk, except for some seagulls. In the sand was an endless tapestry of seagull foot prints in all directions as far as I walked. Seagulls I take it, like to walk on the beach.

My wife explored and I explored, each sort of wandering on our own and taking in the serenity of it all. It’s one of those places you don’t want to leave.

The waves make the kind of noise that sets your mind at rest when they crash to the shore. Loud but gentle. Predictable. Dependable. Watching a wave come to shore, from its first noticeable whitecap, building to its abrupt crash with the land, to its then thin coating of water slipping up the sand beach, sliding forward fast, then slowing, creeping further, a little, a little more…then retreating back to the sea, energy depleted, momentum lost, is a mesmerizing thing.

There is something eternal about it. Peaceful.

I wonder sometimes if the original inhabitants of this land ever came to places like this and just sat, all alone, thinking and contemplating…you know, a couple thousand years ago. On this side of the world there wasn’t much to think about back then perhaps. But I bet if they knew it was here, they came…and they sat and they felt the peace.

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Bored Boat Captain

12-Sep-07

You know how some days you get to work and there’s either a delay in getting started on your work or you simply have nothing to do for an hour or so? or maybe you’re early for a meeting? Thus, you’re bored.

I guess boat captains have those sort of starts to the day occasionally.

I was up at 7:15am looking out the hotel window upon the harbor in Portland, Maine and noticed this fine, large, red boat slowly passing through the scene in front of me. I thought “better take a pic since he’ll be gone before I can sketch it.” I did, then I sat down at the table and drew the sketch. I studied it a moment then looked back out the window.

The boat was passing by again headed in the other direction…nice and slow, just like before. It was like he was just out toodling around with no particular place to go.

Perhaps what I witnessed was a bored boat captain?

Also filed in Machines, Passing Time | | Comments (1) »

Maine Lobster Roll

11-Sep-07

New England is synonymous with Lobster. Thus, when traveling to New England, particularly the Maine coast, one must partake of lobster in some form or another in order to make the trip complete.

I did so three different ways. The first of which was the “lobsta roll”. Never having heard of such, I was intrigued and could not resist trying one.

By the way, lobsta and lobstah are two ways to spell the local pronunciation of lobster. Some of the advertising and signage even spells it that way. I suspect because they realize they have enhanced the word with their own regional dialect and know that we visitors find it amusing. More power to ‘em if it sells more lobsta!

In Portland there is a lovely waterfront and we found ourselves at the Portland Lobster Company for our first dinner of the trip. It’s a laid back dockside restaurant. If you click the link above, you will see in the photo precisely the position where I sat and ate at the dockside bar overlooking the water.

What I have sketched is the infamous Lobsta Roll, typical of every coastal restaurant we visited in Maine.

Take your garden variety Kroger brand large hot dog bun, lightly toasted…
Add mayo, lettuce and buttered lobsta. (I would like to note that the Portland Lobster Company specifically states on their menu that the lobsta meat is “Fresh picked meat from a one pound lobster”. I suppose there is something special about it being a one pound lobster, though I can’t imagine what. But hey, I’m from Georgia. What the hell do I know?)
Add to this a pile of french fries, a tiny cup of very tasty cole slaw, a lemon wedge and a spare cup of mayo…
Place it all in a little stiff paper “basket” with the lobsta roll in its own little stiff paper wrapper to capture drips while eating.
Price this at $16.99 (which in my book is seventeen friggin dollars!) and you have the most expensive meal you can eat from a stiff paper basket.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. A man's gotta make a livin'. So I don't fault anybody for the price. Lobsta stuff is expensive. And to their credit, it's a lot less expensive in Maine than where I live here in the deep South, and much fresher. A lobsta roll can not be found in the Deep South because:

It wouldn’t be fresh…
It would cost $35!

So there you have it, my first meal in Maine.

I might add that just prior to the $17 lobsta roll I had a cup of lobsta bisque at $7.99 (eight friggin dollars in my book!) which did not fill me up. Thus the lobsta roll was a necessary addition for a weary and hungry traveler. I also had very good iced tea which I think was $2.

For those of you keeping score, that totals up to $27 for my first Maine meal and it was all served on stiff paper with plastic forks and those little napkins that are more akin to toilet paper than napkins. And of course you pick it all up yourself at the “pick-up window” when they set off your little hand held buzzer which is of course a molded red plastic lobster, I mean lobsta, that buzzes and flashes.

The tea refills were free though. I refilled often. It made me feel like I was getting a real value for my money.

I’m not complaining here. The food was very, very good and tasty. The cost was just a big surprise that’s all. Go to Maine prepared to spend money on food. LOTS of money.

Of note here is that my dear wife ate dinner as well. So, add in her $22 total (she had clam chowder and fish and chips, thus saving $5) and you have dinner for two totaling $49 and there was no alcohol purchased. We seriously considered alcohol after realizing what we just spent on dinner.

It was a chilling experience for I feared by the look in my wife’s eyes that we may well be eating at McDonald’s the rest of the trip. Clever cajoling and encouragement to go shopping eased the pain for her though and we dined Maine style for the rest of our adventures throughout the Maine coast. What else can you do eh? It’s a vacation. Gotta enjoy it.

On a Side Note

It came to mind that I need to introduce a new dining sensation here in the Deep South…the Catfish Roll.

Let’s see…the menu can read…

“Catfish meat picked from a fresh 35lb. catfish caught in the cold, deep waters at the foot of the dam on Lake Sidney Lanier.”

A catfish is about as ugly as a lobster so it might just work. I wouldn’t get away with a $17 price tag though. $5.99 maybe…hmmm.

More tomorrow…

Also filed in Foods, Restaurants and Such, Stories | | Comments (3) »

Airtran 422, Traveling to Maine

10-Sep-07

Well we’re back from the Maine vacation. They don’t call Maine “vacationland” for nothing. It’s a great place to go on a get-a-way trip, particularly Acadia National Park. Just be sure you go in the summer…unless you like snow and bitter cold.

I’ve got a few travel sketches from the trip I’ll post over the next few days.

A travel sketchbook wouldn’t be complete without sketching my fellow travelers on the plane now would it? Besides, it gave me something to do while stuffed into my little seat. You know you’re stuffed into your seat when the magazines you’re trying to read are too close for your reading glasses to keep them in focus. But sketching was a little easier.

So here’s the first sketch. I’ll post them in order.

Portland was our first stop. Sketches from there tomorrow.

For those who sketch and draw…

These were done in a little Moleskine watercolor notebook (the small one) with pencil and watercolor.
I masked off the area for the sketch with 1/2″ masking tape made for drafting (called drafting tape in the art supply stores). I saw that done in a sketchbook somewhere and liked the result so I thought I’d try it.
I cut a little 2.5″ x 3.5″ piece of mat board for a template and kept it in the pocket in the back of the notebook. I set the template on the page, ran the pencil around it, taped up to the lines, and started sketching.
Once I was done, I carefully peeled away the tape. The result was a nice clean rectangular sketch on the page with room around it to make notes.
A few I sketched while on site and added color in the room that evening. On others, I took digital photos on site and did the whole thing back in the room that evening, referencing the photo from the screen built into the camera back. And one or two were done from memory.