Weekend Trip / Update

My son in the Tweetsie "Jail"

My husband and son in the "crooked house" at Mystery Hill

Practice sketch with pastel pencils

Well I know I haven't posted in quite a while and I haven't been doing any art in quite some time but I thought I would just do an update in case someone is wondering where I've been.

My husband decided that we needed to take our son to the mountains of North Carolina to visit Tweetsie Railroad before he got much older. Tweetsie is located in Boone, NC and in case anyone is not familiar with it, it is a Western type theme park. There is a train ride that lasts around 20 minutes and cowboys and indians have a mock fight. All the kids on the train that have cap pistols they have purchased in the gift shops are invited to fire them at the indians as quickly as possible and make as much noise as they can. There are rides, shows, restaurants, gift stores with different themes, gem mining, gold panning and an arcade. In other words an exhausting day of fun!

Now, I have been to Tweetsie when I was a kid (and no, I won't say how many years ago that was). However, then it was only a train ride and some shops so it has really grown. My mother's ancestors came down from the mountains ages ago, I believe from around Banner Elk and my parents were always dragging the family to the mountains for weekend trips, etc. There are not a whole lot of tourist attractions in the mountains of NC or Tennessee that I haven't visited at least once. They also used to love to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway which is a very twisty, narrow road with lots of scenery. I personally just do not like traveling in the mountains. I would get car sick on the Parkway and my ears would constantly pop. I was reminded of this when my ears began to pop as we ascended into Boone. I told my husband, "This is not my country."

I don't mean to run the mountains down, if you like them that is great. They are just not for me. I would much rather travel to the ocean any day even though it is a longer drive.

Anyway I am glad we took my son to see Tweetsie. We should have taken him two years ago when he would have enjoyed it more and if we had waited two more years I don't think he would have enjoyed it at all. And you know what? I was downloading the photos I took at Tweetsie and I didn't even take one of the train! Well, I'm not going back just to get a picture of the train, I'll tell you that!

On the art scene I have done one small thing with my pastel pencils for practice. I saw a photo on the blog Nikon Sniper and I though it was great so I tried it in pastel. It only took around 10 minutes. Steven I hope you don't mind, it was just for practice. Steven has lots of wonderful photos on his blog.

I am also looking at submitting an entry for an art contest. No prize, just recognition if your drawing is selected. So I am trying to get ideas for that. I am looking at entering another art show with the pieces I had entered for the last one. I've read the rules and it doesn't say the work cannot ever have been in a show before just not in this show before.

Anyway, I hope to be back in full soon, and hopefully will be back checking in and reading your blogs soon as well as posting!

Until next time!