As beautiful as they looked, in full bloom surrounded by the snow, I did not take a photo of our daffodils this morning. I “old school” savored the site. By the time we got up to the park the snow had melted and cherry blossoms took center stage. Shelley scoured the base of some exotic pine trees looking for the pinecones to serve as handles on the exquisite pine needle baskets that she makes and sells in Adirondack gift shops as well as the Memorial Art Gallery’s gift shop. The base of the Austrian Pine trees offered perfect specimens.
We found Shelley wearing her Refrigerator Hat while skating on the marsh when we arrived at their home in the Adirondacks. She looked every bit as good as the Olympian figure skaters we watched tonight on TV. I don’t think Channel 10 is doing itself any favors running their weatherman commercials with the global warming denier/meteorologist, Kevin Williams while it rains in Vancouver. And Bob Costa’s wig looks pretty bad in hi def. Speedskater Apolo Ohno looked damned good though. The Short-track has been our favorite event so far.
We tried skiing like the mogul skiers today, holding our knees together as we zipped through the woods. We need some more snow. The roots are starting show through the snow.
I finally gave in and ordered the Luc Tuyman book from his show at SFMOMA. I’ve been obsessing over it for weeks now. Amazon had it for thirty seven bucks. I’m wondering how the pages of art books are going to look on the iPad. This may be the last art book I buy.
Bob sled painting at the Lake View Motel in Lake Placid, New York
Would love to be in San Francisco for the opening of the Luc Tuymans show. They showed a few luscious paintings of his (one of a gas chamber) in a review in Sunday’s Times. But I’m not complaining. We have wifi access at the Lake Side Motel in Lake Placid New York and the Saints are winning. Kind of funny that the town of Lake Placid is not on Lake Placid. It’s on Mirror Lake. Lake Placid, the lake, is next door. The Olympics were held here in 1980 and some members of the US team are training here now. It’s fourteen degrees outside and they have real snow here unlike Vancouver.
We skied in the woods for a while this afternoon and then skied out on Mirror Lake at sunset before settling in at the bar for a local brew and the pregame show. Every other vehicle on the way up here was towing a trailer with a couple of sleds and we spotted snowmobiles darting across the road everywhere. If snowmobiling is a sport it has to be the most popular one up here. We had dinner with a bunch of Canadians downhill skiers. They kept slipping into French so we couldn’t understand what they were saying. They are going to be out on the slopes at 8 in the morning. They made us cross country skiers feel like slackers.
Our motel overlooks the lake and has some pretty cool artwork in the halls (above). We plan to head over to Pete and Shelley‘s neck of the woods tomorrow where we’ll celebrate a significant birthday for Peggi.
Shelley Valachovic opening at LORAC in Glens Falls New York
We took a leisurely, leaf peeping drive through the Adirondacks to Pete and Shelley’s place near Crown Point. The color was amazing. We lost track of time. Peggi thought she saw snow but it may have been a white cloud in front of one of the high peaks. We stayed too long at Cabin Fever in Star Lake, talking to Irene Baurschmidt’s husband. He was telling us that he used to do “set up” for the Invictas and he was going to do it again for them at an upcoming gig at RIT.
We were going to hook up with Pete and Shelley and drive down to her opening in Glens Falls but we were about an hour late. They were pulling out when we pulled in and we passed each other and then both turned around and then passed each other the second time. We didn’t even see them the second time and we weren’t sure that they had seen us the first time so drove on trying to catch up with them but we never did. We were right on time for the opening and Pete and Shelley showed up about a half hour later.
Shelley’s work is beautiful and we met a lot of their friends and neighbors that we have only heard about until now. We made dinner out of the little egg salad sandwiches. We were happy to that Glens Falls has a minor resurgence going on with a lot of transplanted New Yorkers settleing down here. On the Northway heading back up to Pete and Shelley place we tuned in Toronto’s “Friday Night Bandstand” on AM 740. This is a real radio show with a dj playing obscure singles and b sides along with the old familiar stuff. We only recognized about every other song or so and we were there in the first place.
