Ten things I learned on vacation

Port Howe Bakery Cranberry/Orange Loaf
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(This loaf, really a very heavy cake
is worth gaining 100, even
200 pounds. It's that good. I
painted it, so I wouldn't eat it,
and gave this very plate with the two
scrumptious pieces to my son to eat. He
was suitably grateful. This little painting illustrates
lesson #7.)

1. Two weeks is too short for a vacation (especially
it it's been two years since your last one.)

2. It's hard to beat the feeling of warm sand, and
the sound of ocean waves.

3. Eat locally, especially if locally means seafood,
seafood, seafood.

4. Don't sleep on the third floor of a hotel beside
a highway (higher is quieter.)

5. If you aren't in a hurry take time to enjoy some of the
cultural highlights of the towns where you stop for
the night. (The Beaverbrook Art Gallery
in Frederiction, New Brunswick has an amazing
collection -- and the Beaverbrooks in England are
claiming that Lord Beaverbrook didn't mean to donate
his collection in perpetuity (forever). Fredericton is a small
and lovely town, with great art, and an art scandal
locals are delighted to discuss. (Seems the current
Beaverbrook heirs need money, and casting their
eyes on a great art collection seems like a superb
solution. This means half the paintings in the
gallery have the words "under dispute" on their
labels.)

6. Collecting sea glass is a delightful way to spend your
time on the beach. Steven and I walk along like strange
birds looking, peering in the small
pebbles that wash up in a line above the sand looking
for sea glass. The most coveted is the elusive blue,
which used to be much easier to find.

I need my glasses to search for sea glass in
the Gulf Shore pebbles and rocks. It's a
thoroughly absorbing and delightful task.

7. The Port Howe Bakery outside of Pugwash,
Nova Scotia makes baked goods so unfathomably delectable that it's worth any amount of weight you pack on eating their goodies. (Look for the
bakery across from the large farmhouse with a red
roof that's been for sale for more than a year).

8. It's hard having good friends half way across
the country when you only get to see them once a year.
(I love my Nova Scotia friends, but we can't spend
the time together that I would certainly love to have!)

9. A good holiday is like a party -- good food,
good friends, good ice cream, good wine, long sleeps,
and more of the same all over again, then back home
exhausted to start work.

10. You can paint on vacation, enjoy yourself, and
feel superb, even though you're working on art.
You can also have great conversations about art while your
mate eats lunch, or checks his email.

I might have to continue this because I learned so many
other lessons. But that's enough for now. I'm super
tired. Sam has caught a horrible cold, and Steven and
I are trying our hardest not to get it. More TV cameras
tomorrow, so I need to sleep and be cheery.