I'm guessing that after going back to work as COVID was waning, I stopped writing here and honestly forgot about this blog. I was dealing with memory issues after the car wreck. I was missing lots of pieces of memories for about a year and a half. What seemed to help was diving head first into my artwork, sans blog.

     I went full time as as artist Aug, 25th 2021. I had been doing art festivals on the side for over ten years, nut just in my home state of Oklahoma. My first out of state show was in Evergreen, CO and I killed it! The following weekend was another art fest in the same town and even in the same park, so I was a bit worried that maybe that town had had it's fill on the first weekend, but no, it was the same results! I was officially off and running as a full time artist. That fall, I had not booked a lot of shows because of deadlines missed since I still had a full time job when those deadline passed. But, I started applying to shows for the following spring and summer of 2022. I ended up doing 26 festivals in '22. I had shows in Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Texas and Arizona. I bought a travel trailer and new truck to pull it. It was crazy, exciting super fun, a ton of work, and way too expensive. I met so many artists on the circuit and learned something from everyone of them. Of course there were awesome shows and there were not so great shows. One thing that kept me motivated and positive was an idea that I kept in my head, and mentioned to other artists that may have been having a bad show. The thing I kept saying and fully believing (still do) is "A bad day at an art festival is, and always will be, better than clocking in for someone else". My summer was truly spent camping in Colorado, going to art festivals on the weekends to make money, and fly-fishing and creating more art during the week. One can only be so lucky!

     Back in May of 2007, I had been living in the Seattle area and was a total rookie, wanna-be photographer. I would frequently go on exploration hikes. I would get in the Jeep and drive to some general idea of a location. This was usually as defined as, I'm going west today and see what I find. I was always looking for someplace pretty to explore. It was a time before I considered myself a photographer or had even really thought about what that meant. I was on the look out for an afternoon get-a-way. I had a camera and a tripod although I really didn't know how to use either very well. On these explorations, I would drive until I found something that looked interesting, stop and check it out. On this day in May, it was a beautiful spring day. I had stopped earlier at Lake Cushman. After spending maybe an hour here, I decided to move on. Hopped in the Jeep and headed into the Olympic National Forest. This is a lovely drive. Everything was green and lush. Eventually I ended up at a sign for Mount Ellinor. The peak is only 5944' I thought. It's a beautiful day and early enough let's do this. If it gets hairy or looks like I am going to get lost, I can always turn around and walk back down this trail. Easy day hike!

     I jumped out of the Jeep, grabbed my light corduroy jacket, backpack with camera gear and strapped on my tripod with a bungee cord and headed up the path. This is nice I thought. There is no one out here. I can hear wild birds chatting with each other. As expected, there was a slight uphill climb on this trail. About 15 minutes into my relaxing hike, I saw a small patch of snow in the shade of a fallen log. Cool, snow! As I continued along, more snow. And more snow. And more snow. It was getting thick but I was on a well defined path.