Lots and lots and lots of road sums up day two of my journey.
My trek across the country has officially begun. Well, not completely across the country…but a good chunk of it anyway. I was offered a job at another small town newspaper, and at this point I could not resist.
This time my journey takes me West to Alberta, about an hour and a half from Edmonton. Since Ontario is the Westest (not a word, but it should be) I’ve ever been, everything is new and exciting and should be a grand adventure if nothing else.
My car is packed to the brim and I’m looking forward to exploring more of this beautiful country. One day down, three to go. Pant….
My life for the next three days. Nothing like an open road with a new beginning at the end.
Today I had the pleasure of uniting with my long lost little one, Empo. If she kept up with her blog I would link it, but she is more of a slacker in that department than I am (hint hint…)
Anyways, she traveled down to dear old Dundas to see me, and we had a nice little wander around some wondrous nature areas. Our first stop was Tews Falls, which is always a treat for the eyes. Everything had become so much greener since my last visit, full of life and crawling with people ready for hikes and family outings. From there were made our way to another beautiful area close by; Webster’s Falls.
To get to the bottom area of Webster’s you need to muster your courage, and bury your fear of heights and steep slick stone stairs. Of course it isn’t until you’ve explored the lower part to your hearts content that you realize…you need to ready your thighs for the workout of their life when you decide to climb back up those hundreds of stairs (which start to seem like thousands by the time you near the top).
After what will be my physical activity for the month, we plopped ourselves down under a giant willow tree residing there for a well deserved rest. Where we chatted and lounged and lay on the grass until we had to leave.
Today was a good day.
Everything around here is so lush and green now. It doesn’t seem too long ago the leaves were still budding and all around us was brown, recovering from winter. Nature has transformed overnight and is vibrantly alive with life; I love it!
My friends this is a story of a vision, a volunteer, a grandmother’s unused upstairs bedroom, and a lot of red paint. And of course, Sherlock Holmes.
My artsy cousin Elizabeth came to me with a creative proposition. After vaguely explaining some no good, money hungry folks want to tear down the building the Sherlock Holmes series was written in, she went on to tell me her idea. Wanting to submit her contribution Save Undershaw, a campaign attempting to save this beloved building from certain doom. Little Elizabeth didn’t have to explain much past wanting to splatter red paint all over the place and I was in.
For those of you who don’t know patience, this is it. Letters made carefully from pieces of tape, moved from the safe sturdiness of a cardboard box to the wall that would be the background of the soon to be messy project.
Once the letters, forming Save Undershaw, were carefully in place, the splattering began! Splattering paint isn’t as easy as you think. At least not for me, who lost their splattering privileges after managing to get more paint all over the floor, wall, ceiling, myself…than I did on the paper.
After the letters were complete, the splattering on people began. Elizabeth needed a male volunteer for the job, and asked if I knew someone. I gladly volunteered Scott, who tentatively accepted the task (I’m sure not entirely informed of what he was getting himself into).
A brave and patient soul he is. And yes, that is my grandma’s bathing cap.
Six cups of tea and three hours of paint splattering and photo taking later, our mission was complete. Needless to say the evening was a lot of fun.
This is one of the final images:
I had to use my very neglected Photoshop ‘skills’ to take out the lines on the wall. I’ve definitely seen better, but my attempted stamp tooling will have to do for now.
Apparently Scott is the only person I take pictures of anymore. But this lighting was too good to pass up. Have I mentioned how much I love light? Actually this is us enjoying a cup of tea (thoughtfully provided by my dearest Gramma), waiting for my ever-so-talented cousin to prepare her artsy Sherlock Holmes-esque project Scott got coaxed into being the model for. So I’ll be posting about that in the next day or so. It was a good (and very messy) time.
In the middle of the woods.
