• In July '07 we traveled to Stratford, Ontario to attend the live theater festival there as well as to paint on-location in the beautiful downtown park by the Avon River. This small work  shows the view west toward one of the main bridges across the Avon.

• Our annual fall painting/hiking trip for 2007 will be several weeks in Nova Scotia, the Halifax (Peggy’s Cove) and Digby areas.

•  The winter “get away from the cold” trip will be to Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

Trip to Europe 2006

In September 2006 we took an 18 day "ALPINE SAMPLER" excursion with a tour company of 30 people to Europe.  After an overnight flight from Philly to Milan we tour-bussed to Stresa Italy, a small city on Lake Maggiori near Lake Como (noted  for the villas of the rich and famous).  Six days were spent there touring Stresa with a side trip to Lake Como/Belagio.  In Stresa we had dinner at the beautiful home of a young  Italian family; the husband is an avid and creative painter.

Our next venue was Interlaken Switzerland, famous for the Jungfrau mountain. Five days were spent in that area, with side trips to Bern and Gstad where we toured a cheese making facility.  Switzerland is a fiercely independent country that thrives on neatness and exactitude.

Our final venue was Seefeld Austria, near more familiar Innsbruck of winter olympic fame.  Seefeld is located in a broad valley surrounded by high and steep alpine mountains (see image on the homepage).  We spent a week there with side trips to Mittenwald (violin making) and Saltzburg, Mozart’s birth home and location of famed “Sound of Music”.

All three of these venues were artworthy. Our tour setup gave us a lot of free time…many whole days to forego the optional side tours and just explore on our own.  Patricia and I love to hike and just walk, and we did lots of that.  It was also productive from an art standpoint.  I used my mini studio-in-a-bag to do many pen and ink plus watercolor sketches, several of which were purchased by fellow travelers, and which also led to post trip commissions for studio paintings. 

Trip to California and Nevada - March 2006

In mid-March 2006, wife Patricia and I flew to Las Vegas, rented a compact car, ignored the Vegas strip and headed for the "bush" to paint on-location and hike.  After provisioning at the first Wal-Mart we came to we drove three hours north to the tiny town of Beatty, NV.  This is in the middle of nowhere and not far from the notorious Area 51, where modern legend has it that an alien flying saucer crashed and the bodies were recovered.  Also, this is near the testing site for A-bombs.

    Using a Beatty motel (elevation 4400 feet) as a base for 6 days we drove 30 miles daily through the pass and descended into Death Valley, CA....elevation, zilch...(even at some places, negative zilch!).  We were surprised at how beautiful and colorful DV is.  Death Valley is a National Park, 130 miles long north to south, the biggest in the lower 48 states. The flat valley is only a few miles wide and is bounded by mountains ranging from 4,000 feet to 12,000 feet on the east and west. "Wasn't it awfully hot and dry?".... everyone asks. Well, we got rained on and snowed on (just morning flurries...but it was snow), and the mountains were snow covered above 6,000 feet the whole week we were there.  Morning temps were mid-40's, but 70's by noon and we were peeling off clothing to summer stuff.  The sun is intense, and the two major problems to deal with regarding plein air (on-location) painting were getting out of the sun (no trees) and the constant wind.  This photo shows one of the several ways we dealt with these hurdles...using the hatch back of the Chevy Aveo as a sun and wind shield.

   I was able to get four paintings done, and we had some really nice hikes back in the spectacular canyons through the west-side mountains. There are also enough tourist attractions to keep one busy for several days....a volcano crater, some serious dunes, two oasis hotel/motel/camping areas, a golf course, various roadside exhibits about the mining done there in the past, and Scotty's Castle...a real honest to goodness castle with guided tours.  If you ever want to go, do it in March while it's cool there.  Just two weeks after we got back from our trip, DV had three consecutive days of 100+ temperatures!!

   After DV we drove back south to Lake Mead...the largest man made (Hoover Dam) lake in continental USA. This is a tourist-friendly facility - lots of picnic shelters with great views of the lake which is 30% low due to drought.  Two paintings were done here, one of which sold upon completion to a couple from London, England. 

    We also spent two days at Red Rock Canyon, a National Park 20 miles west of Las Vegas.  This is a must see for anyone who likes spectacular mountain/canyon scenery with lots of color.  Good hiking trails...but don't mess with the feral burrows if you come across them.  They are cranky and might charge you if you get inside their public distance. I got one watercolor done here and wish I would have had more time to do more.  Paintings are still available for purchase on this website.

In Sept. 2005 we traveled to Spain for our third time. This trip was with Elderhostle, a tour company for senior people. This was one of their walking and lecture-tours. For ten days we hiked on the Compostella-Santiago, an 11^th Century  pilgrimage trail starting from Burgo and ending at the Cathedral at Santaigo where the relics of St. James are buried. The whole trail is 350 miles long; we actually walked 62 miles of it (the rest by van). It is very well marked and goes through a variety of venues: desert, high plateau, mountains, vineyards, country roads, near highways and through busy cities.  On a given day there are plenty of hikers on the trail…hundreds, from countries all over the world.