Wednesday

The car is loaded up with about ten smaller paintings, the French easel and a few blank canvases for fun. Ready for the trip to Scottsdale, estimated time about ten and a half hours, unless I meet some overturned eighteen wheeler like I did last time, then it could be an extra few hours watching them clean it all up.

I’m not kidding, last time I came back up from there, just before the road starts the switch backs up the north rim area of the Grand Canyon, there was some produce truck sprawled all over one of the sharp curves. Crates of onions were broken open and rolling down the road. We waited for the police and a large crane truck to slowly lifting the mangled carnage off to the side. The driver of the rig seemed perplexed as to why the thing would have rolled on a 180 degree switch-back. A normally desolate, empty highway over the course of an hour developed quite a crowd of impatient drivers trying to call out in an area where there is no cell phone coverage.

The last few days have been a little busy, putting the final touches on paintings and watching the Winter Olympics. On Monday, Karin called me into the TV room all frantic; Sweden was pulling ahead of Norway in the women’s ten kilometer freestyle cross-country. We have a Norwegen living across the street, so tensions were high! She could hardly contain herself to the couch, hopping up and down with every movement of the exhausted skier

Finally in the end little Charlotte Kalla took the gold and our six foot long Swedish flag was hanged up high on the porch. Giggi across the street was silent, the agony of defeat.

Yesterday, it was another repeat in the men’s biathlon. France was leading with Norway in second place, but with the biathlon, things change very fast when a contestant misses the shots and has to do a penalty lap. Sweden pulled ahead on the second to last lap and with a relaxed composure shot more of the targets and sailed on to a clear victory. The flag went up again and the Norwegian was silent!

Catch you all on the flip side, I took the mac with, so I’ll update down there.

Richard Boyer