Just Wondering - XC Skiing Dreaming

Ma and Pa giving it a try

The temperatures here in Fort Collins are up in the 60's today, so the snow is melting fast in front of the breeze. Back with the earlier snowfall weeks back in the teens, conditions seemed just right for cross country skiing. We haven't tried to ski since back in early 1990's when we stayed at Black Butte, Oregon. Other than going to REI and Sierra Trading Company stores a couple of weeks ago to just look at equipment, I have really no idea about the right kind of equipment to get. Good thing for the Internet, a quick search and I found an informational video by Ors Cross Country Ski Direct.com at the bottom of the article titled: Don't Make The Mistake Of Spending Big Bucks For XC Skis that gives an introductory overview about skis and boots.

Our Children's Losses

January 16, 2015

An excellent article today in the Washington Post that shows the effects of war on children left behind by lost service parent since the war in Afghanistan started following September 11. A difficult read, but good for remembering - not to turn away from because of the uncomfortableness of it all. Children of the Fallen: Portraits of Loss. A child's story for each year since 2001.

Nature and Artists Juxtaposed - Search for Ellie Bogardus

We have admired Melanee Sylvester's landscape paintings for as long as we have been aware of Cambria. Her style has evolved through the years, slightly, but her work is our favorite of what we have seen on the Central California coast - her work characterizes this part of the world.(1) Jan and I have purchased a half-dozen of her prints and have them hanging on the walls around our house. For what would have been a steal price-wise now, the cost of her oils were more than what we could have afforded then - such it is. When coming into Cambria along Highway 1 as we are approaching the stop light,  I always look for the back of her gallery in the row of stores along West Village on Main Street.

Today I received an email from a blog viewer who kindly furnished a picture of an Ellie Bogardus painting that she and her husband have. They were in Cambria this weekend on a mission to find out more about Borgardus, and were wondering if I had any leads to share. They had checked with a woman at the Artifacts Gallery (another of my favorite places in Cambria), and found that she had used to work with Ellie at the production company that made the Peanuts cartoons, but didn't know of the Cambria connection. I gave a few suggestions, and hope to hear how their quest turns out.

Melanee Sylvester at work

A natural landscape on Park Hill

 Ellie Bogardus' and Mellanee Sylvester's works couldn't be more different - than Matisse and Renoir.

Tracy Sylvester-Harris' work

Melanee's daughter Tracy paints scenes of life along the California Coast as well. Her art is displayed at the Sylvester Gallery as well and information about her is found here, but I saw she has showings at other venues and media as well. Click here, here, and here to view. The later has very nice images of her work. An inventory of her exhibitions are found here.
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 (1) Sylvester's work is even referenced in reports of such prosaic events as the drought and its non-effect on a kind of local flora (click here).

Blue Skies

“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have."

“Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.” Puddleglum the Marshwiggle

C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair
1953

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Irving Berlin, Blue Skies

I was blue, just as blue as I could be
Ev'ry day was a cloudy day for me
Then good luck came a-knocking at my door
Skies were gray but they're not gray anymore

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see

Bluebirds
Singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds
All day long

Never saw the sun shining so bright
Never saw things going so right
Noticing the days hurrying by
When you're in love, my how they fly

Blue days
All of them gone
Nothing but blue skies
From now on



I should care if the wind blows east or west
I should fret if the worst looks like the best
I should mind if they say it can't be true
I should smile, that's exactly what I do