Good bad travel and bad bad travel

Juvenile Stork, or, The One Decent Image I Got This Weekend

A friend of mine has categories for different kinds of fun: Type 1 fun is fun when you're doing it, and fun when you look back on it fondly. Type 2 fun is not so much fun when you're doing it, but improves significantly in the re-telling. Type 3 seems fun while you're doing it, but doesn't stand up well to the memory test. Type 4 fun isn't fun when you're doing it, and isn't fun a year later.

We had lots of Type 4 fun this weekend.

You all know I can write with relish about Type 2 fun, which, when on a trip, I have renamed "Good Bad Travel." It's undeniably a bad trip, but it's either interesting or adventurous, and so therefore is the good kind of bad travel. When my brother got pickpocketed by two Italian teenagers on the Gran Via in Madrid, it ended up being Good Bad Travel, because the ensuing story was hilarious: We went to the police station in the Puerto del Sol and reported the theft in our best Spanish. The desk cop listened to about three words of it before rolling his eyes and speaking to us in English, as if he were addressing two toddlers.

But in order to save a trip from a Bad Bad Travel designation, there must be some aspect of 1) humor, 2) danger or adventure or 3) some other interesting feature. There was none of that this weekend. When you pick the coldest weekend in a decade to visit Florida, when you are wilderness freaks who get stuck in a KOA campground on the weekend of the Daytona 500, when you go to a wildlife refuge known for its avian life and see approximately three very hardy birds*, then you are experiencing Bad Bad Travel.



*This may be a slight exaggeration.

Present and accounted for

No, I haven't abandoned ship again. But I'm very much behind the 8-ball in preparing for my trip to Florida tomorrow. We'll be doing an overnight canoe trip on the Santa Fe River in interior north Florida. And if the forecast is correct, we'll be freezing our tails off to boot, though not as badly as we would here.

My images got accepted to a new stock agency last week, so this trip is about continuing to build my stock. I'm still focusing a great deal on Indiana and Florida, though I still have more images from Montana than either of those. I'm very happy about getting images from the interior of Florida, which remains one of my favorite places from the years I lived in Gainesville so long ago.

I pick up T from the airport on Thursday and we're headed straight for a beachside campsite.

I'm irritated to be packing fleece and base layers for a trip to Florida, but like I said, it's a sight better than what we're getting here.

Tales of my adventures will be forthcoming after we get back to civilization this weekend.

Happiness and the art of doing your thing

Lunch with my friend Niffy today, which reminds me that the people I'm most drawn to are the ones who are Doing Their Thing -- or, put another way, living their lives. I think I've mastered this, finally. For me the key has been Doing My Thing with no expectation of outcome other than simply doing it.

Guess where I'm going on Valentine's weekend?

It's February. Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

Pillowcases

Making pillowcases has become an addiction. I'm thinking seriously about an Etsy shop. I don't actually expect to sell any, but that's not really the point.

Here are two I finished today with fabric I got in Sedona. The ones on the left are mine -- you know, with the bright, bold colors. The ones on the left are for T's mother, who is fond of Kokopelli.

Trailhead gets a show

I had breakfast this morning with my friend of longest standing. She's known me since I was an awkward thirteen-year-old. These days, I'm an awkward 39-year old, and she's part owner of a theatre in an artsy town in southern Indiana. The theatre has a lobby, which lobby will soon be featuring some of my photographs, many of which you can find here. (The list of galleries is in the far lower left hand corner.)

As I told T this afternoon, this requires that i re-imagine my imagery, from stock photography to fine art. I'll probably put a combination of Indiana nature images and quirky animal shots.

Okay, I've had imagery bought and published, and now shown in a venue. Now, on to working on getting some travel writing published. Everything in its time, I suppose.

Obama says F*ck it

Love this.


Obama Says F*ck It

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