To Rebecca's

A new adventure
with paint, only ninety brief
minutes down the road

~ carliewired

I found a painting group in Salmon Arm, an hour and a half away on the Trans Canada Highway. I feel I need that connection that will encourage me to continue. I have no such connection here in my own city. So, each Wednesday afternoon through April and May, I will drive to join this group and have 3 hours to paint with them.

The drive to Salmon Arm, east of Kamloops, is usually a beautiful one, in spite of the highway driving. As I leave Kamloops I follow along beside the Thompson River and then beside the Shuswap Lake. The highway winds and turns along this route. Much of the drive is through farm land with lovely views in all seasons.

Salmon Arm is a city of about 20 000 right on the Trans Canada and right beside Shuswap Lake. The town got its name because it is on an arm of the lake where the Salmon River empties into Shuswap Lake. And, yes, there are salmon.

One of the beautiful landscape features of Salmon Arm is Mount Ida, on the south side of the city. In 1998, a wildfire jumped across the valley and started a fire on Mount Ida. That has scarred the mountain and is still visible today. I took this shot as I was driving into town.

I had a surprise at Rebecca's today as I joined her painting group. As I walked up to her studio, a collection of cast-offs from her pottery work was piled under a pine tree in her yard. I asked her what she was going to do with her 'boneyard'. She said I could help myself as leaky teapots and broken pots were of no use to her. I had to snap this shot. Her art work is wonderful - the pots and the paintings!