February 2026

Near the end of our 1995 trip to the UK and Ireland we ended up in Bath. It was a rough day, after being stuck in a very hot train for hours, walking for miles trying to find a place to stay for the night, and finally settling for an old hotel next to the train station that was quite noisy. Then the next day we found a better place to stay and began enjoying this beautiful little city. In this view, the river Avon flows through the center of town.

January 2026

Maureen suggested that I do a painting based on photos from our 1997 trip to the east coast. I looked through them and didn't find any that were very inspiring, but I did find one of the beach at Ocean City, Maryland, that had some potential. I remember being amazed at the whole scene when we were there. Huge crowds of people everywhere and the long boardwalk filled with with tacky little souvenir shops. It was like the beach at Santa Cruz taken to the extreme. Maureen's childhood friend, who we were with, said it was like a little United Nations with all the diversity, but as you can see it was nearly all white.

 I picked another scene from my 2001 hike of the John Muir Trail with my friend, Gerald. This is our campsite at lower Palisade Lake after a hard day of climbing the Golden Staircase with heavily loaded packs after being resupplied by Aaron and Alicia the previous day.

I happened across a photo from our trip to Mammoth last September that I thought I could use for a painting. I remember having that in mind at the time that I took it. As we often do, we went for a walk at Hot Creek and found this high desert scene on the canyon slopes.