Sitting at the airport right now waiting for our first of two flights to get home. Yesterday we had a pretty easy day. With the winter advisory stil in effect for most of the parks, we didn't feels safe going back for the last day. You could see the storms in the mountains from our accomodation. That morning, we made a big breakfast to try and use up as many groceries as we could.
With that, we took a day trip to Fresno. We explored a Japanese Garden that was located in a park. This garden was serene and full of flora from it's namesake. We saw an exhibition of bonsai, some over 1000 years old, some koi, and a few peacocks and peahens.
Following the Japanese Garden we grabbed lunch and made our way to the Fresno Art Museum. They had a wonderful exhibit of uykio-e prints from the collection of the Georgia Museum of Art, go figure! They also had an exhibiton on trading cards, a secret war photographer, and Judy Wayne. Seem's they have a thing for 2D work, more specifically printed work. The Wayne exhibition was especailly interesting with the use of negative imagry, lithography, and the type and color of paper she chose. The work was an exploration of her mother, a single working mom during the 40s and 50s, when that was unheard of. There I also spoke with two locals for quite some time who were very curious about what brought me to Fresno and what it's like in Georgia. It was interesting to me that they think of Georgia as having a much higher crime rate than here in California.
Following the museum we visited another garden, Covis Botanical, which is all volunteer run. This garden was very nice, especially to be completely run by volunteers. I sat for a while under a tree and jotted down thoughts and images. We left there, stopped through a shopping center, then headed back for the evening. We spent the evening going through the mass of pictures we collected over the last five days.
A lot of happy pictures of happy people. We had a great time and made a lot of good memories together. You couldn't have asked for a better trip with friends. Now I'm eager to visit more National Parks, we've got another trip planned in July for Congerie National Park. Maybe the Great Smokey Mountains is the thing to start planning.
Where to even begin? The last few days have been so packed with experiences I can't keep my head on straight. I reckon I'll do things the Julie Andrews way and start from the very begining.
After we arrived in Fresno, we met with our friends and got our car. For dinner we had In-N-Out, which for most of us was our first time. The way they chop those gigantic potatoes is comical and hilarious. Following dinner we made our way to the grocery and our AirBnb.
The next morning we all got up extra early for our long drive to Yosemite National Park. We got to see most of the big hitters, El Capitan, the Half Dome, a grove of giant sequoias, meadows and waterfalls. We got so wet at the falls, everyone was grinning like a dead pig and had the giggles. At the Yosemite Post Office, why yes, there is a post office in the park, I got my notebook stamped with the special note they have for mail coming out of the park. The drive back was more outrageous than the drive in, because at least when you're driving in, you get to see some sights. At night it's pitch black in them hills.
Yesterday we made our way to Sequoia National Park, that much I know. Today and yesterday are kinda running together for me because were getting started at the crack of dawn and crashing at 11PM. We went through the foothills of the park and saw Tunnel Rock and Hospital Rock then made our way up to higher altitude where we climbed to the top of the mountain and saw some really neat sequoias. We hiked back down so we could then visit the worlds largest tree, General Sherman. A monument to say the least, however we were all quite tired at that point and had some more places in mind. We ended the day by watching the sunset from the side of the mountain where we met some deer.
Today we fortunately didn't have to wait on a road closure to clear up for us to get into the main area of Sequoia National Park. But... we did have eminent road closures due to a winter advisory and possible snow. We took the main road that traverses through Sequoia and into formerly known as Grant Park. This area, now part of Kings Canyon, has another one of the largest trees in the world, the second, to be more specific. The General Grant tree is a lot more impressive in my opinion than the Sherman tree. A guide explained that Grant grows at a much more rapid pace than Sherman, so if all goes well, it'll be the largest in some hundred years. We made a stop on the way out of Kings Canyon, but hustled out to be sure the road didn't close on us, lest we wanted to drive out around our elbow to get to our ass. Our last stop was Tokopah Falls. The hike followed Marble Fork of Kaweah River, and its just stunning. The trail is likely one of my personal favorites. As we approached the falls, it slowly began to snow on us. The closer we got, the more it snowed. We made it right up to a great view of the falls, when we decided to turn around. It kept snowing. It kept snowing more. Joshua and our friends were getting a little nervous, I was still awestruck beyond worries. The snow was beautiful, the trees were beautiful, the rapids, the flurries, the wet soggy soil, the fog, the clouds, the wall of rock scaling your whole view. All so beautiful. We made it back safe and sound, no tire chains needed, and no snow on the roads.
The land here has an energy that is hard to describe with words. It's serene and spiritual, monumental and cleansing, pure and sacred. There's a feeling about the air that feels like a spirit of some kind, maybe the mountain, maybe the river, or the trees. It's hard to wrap your head around a place that took millions of years to develop, and organisms that took hundres, or even thousands of years to grow to where they are now. When I blink, I see flashes of the seminal landscape that we were so fortunate to see this week. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude in this moment but also inspired to make and inspired to do. I'm eager to see what come of this experience.
Today the girlies and I are on the way out to California. Five of us are meeting in Fresno to drive out to an accomodation just between Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and the Giant Sequoias. We're all super excited to experience these monuments together. It's particularly special because these are some of our closest friends, and it'll be one of the last big things we get to do together while we all live in Georgia.
Joshua planned the whole thing, the way he does. I'm so grateful he's headstrong about planning, because I am not. I want it all to just happen and enjoy the ride. He's so excited for this trip; he's bought binoculars, a harness, a new flashlight, new boots, jackets, the whole get-up. Of course, everything that can be is in the color green.
I've packed a notebook I made especially for the month of May in addition to my regular sketchbook. I aim to take both out to the parks each day and have study time. I think I speak for most of us when I say we need time to sit and draw and write. A professor of ours always says, "Writing is thinking." Like most, I didn't quite get the advice until I had sat with it and experienced it for myself. Writing is thinking, but drawing is too. As visual artists, we all need the time to sketch ideas, jot notes, and study the world by translating it to paper.
I'll end with a poem I wrote for someone on the trip. Their birthday was yesterday.
ardent instinct, namely sharp language, ensonorous yen.
free as yon river, ever-nesting endeavors.
so tend each edition, value eclipsed suns.
As many are aware at this point, Joshua and I have made the decision to move to Conneticut. He's enrolling in an MFA program at UCONN this fall. I'm quite excited for him, but also for myself. He's needed space and time to make more now than ever. His feet are off the ground with interesting ideas and he seriously needs the facility and time to explore these ideas further. I'm quite proud of him, he is becoming more of himself, and it makes me love him more and more.
I am excited for myself because we'll be just a short two hour train ride from NYC. A close friend of mine is moving to Brooklyn this month, and another already lives in Hudson. After our trip back in November, I discovered how important it would be for me to have constant access to the Big Apple.
This blog post, the first one, is titled the chattahoochee valley beats like a heart because I'm feeling now, more than ever, how much love is in this community. Joshua-Michéle Ross came to Columbus last week bringing his participatory performance piece titled Séance to Summon A Garden. Much of the audio from this piece is recorded from Columbus and Pasaquan. He sent us the audio recording of our performance just a few moments ago, and I couldn't help but cry again. These sounds epitomize the valley, and Georgia for that matter, in a way that anyone who's lived here for some time would feel the beat of it's heart.
Here are the two recordings of the performance where I participated. I was chosen by the Whippoorwill at Pasaquan and the Beautiful Strangers, a.k.a. the goats, at Illges. I hope you enjoy them both.
Pasaquan