January 2008

I didn't realize that I was homesick for the Appalachian Mountains until I got here. But first, let me catch you up on my journey. Right after my last post, I was preparing to move from Texas to Atlanta. Atlanta is about 90 miles from where I grew up and where most of my family live. I was very excited to be moving back home and spending time with my kinfolks. Yet I grew to love Texas and was feeling quite melancholy about leaving The Republic.I love the Texas landscape, especially the western part of the state. I have been to Big Bend National Park twice and consider it the birthplace of my love of landscape painting. I wanted to get one more west Texas painting trip in before I left. Texas has another national park besides Big Bend, Gualdalupe Mountains National Park. GMNP is home to El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak - the highest point in Texas - and is near Carlsbad Caverns National Park. As I thought about how much Texas had given me, all the great times within its borders, and how much I've learned over the last 15 years, I knew I had to spend some quality time with her before I left.  Furthermore, the past year has been amazing for me and I feel that I'm at the peak of my life so far. So spending my final days in Texas at its highest point seemed fitting. So I decided to celebrate Christmas painting the Chihuahua Desert one more time. It was a very spiritual trip and I spent Winter Solstice sleeping in my tent under the stars. There is something about the land out west that is very sacred and compelling. Even if I never live in Texas again, I'll always have Texas in my soul. El Capitan  El Capitan  Merry Christmas, Ya'll   Whites City, NM is my kind of place. I stood out here for two hours, and they never did play football.  Texas in my rearview mirror.So I arrived back in the Deep South and got settled in. I bought topographical maps and loaded the area onto my GPS. As I  found sites that would be interesting I was amazed at how close they were. In Texas everything is about four to twelves hours apart from anything else. In a four hour radius of Atlanta there are hundreds of great parks, hiking trails, lakes and mountains. My usual drives are filled with wonderful landscape subjects. I was driving back to Atlanta from Hokes Bluff, AL one weekend and stopped and did a quick sketch by the road side in Iron City, AL.  And today I went painting in Valley Head, AL. I met a nice fellow who let me walk around his farmland to find this subject.  After I finished, I had a great dinner of home cooking at Desee's Cafe in Mentone then went for a hike at Cloudland Canyon State Park, GA. I then drove home watching the sun set across the North Georgia mountains. As I was walking around Cloudland Canyon, I realized that it just feels like home. I didn't know it, but the Valley and Ridge had been calling me and now I'm here.