Get out of town.

Recently I made a camping reservation in a Massachusetts State Park. Since I own a T@G trailer, it would be easy to get out of town for a few days. My scheduled travel plans, a June tour trip through Newfoundland, to see icebergs and puffins was cancelled due to COVID. I was on-line three days after the state open its booking platform, and almost all sites were already booked. Geeez, I guess others had the same idea. Also the scarcity of sites was due to 50% site closures due to in compliance to COVID regulations. After much searching I finally found a site for three days in row at the Mohawk Trail State Park located between the Cold River and Deerfield River in Charlemont.

During my get away, Massachusetts was having a heat wave and the weather was hot and humid even in the Berkshire Hills  Here's my self portrait I painted one afternoon using a hand held mirror. Notice the wet, clumpy strands of hair and lack of cheerfulness.  Oh well.  It was good to be out of the house.  During one special night there, I heard a Barred owl and her three owlets.  Her baby owls whistle not hoot like their mom.

 

On the first day of painting, I naturally selected the Cold River river basin which was filled with huge rounded boulders, hundreds of water washed rocks and numerous intimate pools.  I had to scramble down a wall of rocks and stones to get to the river base and set up my easel.  Once set up, I enjoyed the sound of water trickling over the bed rocks as I painted.

Campers enjoy floating in these pools and to cool down esp in this humid weather. The Cold River during the summer months has a restful nature. Children like to build small dams by piling up the rocks making deeper pools of water were they can splash about or sit on inner tubes.

Second day of painting, I was given permission from the Ranger to enter a closed area where there were a pile of logs which were moss covered, split bark, piles of saw dust and had a background of light filled green woods. She came over where I was painting during her lunch break to check out what had piqued my interest.

"Hey, do you ever paint fungi?" she asked. No, not yet but I have painted Jack in the Pulpits and Ferns en plein air.

Be well.