Welcome back! Filling in the gaps from last year… John and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary with a little road trip in the Miata <3
Flying Adventures had a month-long exhibition at Columbus’ Priscilla R. Tyson Cultural Arts Center, which was a dream come true— decades ago I took ceramics and painting classes here, and taught my very first photography class in the basement. I was always inspired by the exhibitions in the gallery space and hoped that one day I’d have an exhibition there myself. It was an honor to be accepted.
I’ve finally come to embrace that Flying Adventures is truly a long-term project that runs along at its own pace. It will find a spot to land for a bit, then I’ll pack it away again for awhile & work on other things until it feels right to find another destination for it. I might work on a print-on-demand book for fans who’d like to buy a full-version print copy… we’ll see… my projects list is long!
The solar eclipse happened on my birthday and somehow I managed not to get sucked into a hole in the space-time continuum! John and I spent the afternoon having a picnic with Pippin, who insisted that we all pose for a selfie with our glasses.
Pippin and I finally worked toward riding together. All on our own and in our own time. I’ll write more about this in a Dear Pippin post, but basically it involved taking the tiniest baby steps and doing them over and over and over. We were dedicated.
Airplane friends, it’s been AWHILE. The Champ has been out of commission for the past two years while it’s being rebuilt (John’s thinks it will be ready to go sometime this summer!) and the Starfighter has been down for those same two years while waiting for its new engine, which finally arrived last fall! Below, John is hauling it into the hangar. Doesn’t it look like a little spaceship?
Many good friends helped swap the engines that day, and the new one — actually a rebuild, thank you, Richard Goode! — is now being put through its paces— 20 hours at max power to get everything “settled in.” It is amazing to see (and hear and feel!) it fly again. And it makes me so happy for John, because a piece of his soul goes missing when he can’t fly his plane. Here’s to summer flying adventures!!
Also lots of great trips last year with John in his Superman — err…umm — captain suit. (Yes he is Clark Kent until he puts on the stripes.) San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, L.A., Vegas, Chapel Hill, Greenville, Seattle, Cleveland, Indianapolis… We always look for a bookstore, a place to go for a long walk, and if the weather’s nice, a good spot for a picnic.
Capital Books in Sacramento
I woke up from a nap on the flight from LA to Seattle, looked out the window, and there was Crater Lake. So unmistakable!
Summer came, and with it, the patio. Fireflies, hawks, grasshoppers and praying mantids in my plants, mama ducks with babies, coyote howls across the field in the woods, crickets well into October… I love our apartment patio SO much. So does Sherman…
Even Valentine gets to enjoy playing in the greenery.
Later in the year we got to go to DC for a very special occasion: One of John’s siblings was retiring from a super-top-secret government career and invited the entire family to celebrate. We toured the Capitol, the Library of Congress, the Museum of American History, and had way too much fun at the International Spy Museum.
The best part of the entire trip, though? — sitting at the dinner table listening to his sister tell stories about her job that she could finally tell, and realizing she did WAY more for our country than her family ever knew.
At the US Capitol
And after all the doing of things throughout the year, winding down 2024 with a quiet Christmas and New Year’s Eve at home was perfect.
More soon.
