These Days …
We did something different last/this month. Sarah and I took our first vacation – just the two of us – ever. We have traveled numerous times in the thirty plus years that we’ve been together but those trips have always had some purpose other than just hanging out together – sick friends or relatives, weddings, memorials, conventions, business. My brother and his husband took us to Hawai’i. That was great but it was a group tour. From October 29th to November 5th it was just the two of us road tripping.
The original impetus for the trip was my brother’s birthday – one of those significant ones with a zero in it. I had scheduled my annual vacation back in January in order to visit him on October 31st. I have to schedule time off at the beginning of the year if I want more than a day. So I blocked out two weeks and didn’t think about it much for months.
Then Sarah needed to schedule flights and hotels and car rentals. And it seemed like fun to visit other folks as well.
So on October 29th we flew down to San Diego to visit Sarah’s oldest (longest known) friend. We rented a car and drove to his place. He’d forgotten we were coming but quickly adjusted. A wonderful time was had. Good food, great company.
On the 30th we drove from San Diego to Berkeley. 13 hours. We spent as much time as we could on Highway 101. Better views there than I5. Sarah talked. I drove and responded as much as I could while making sure nobody killed us.
On the 31st we hung out with my brother. Breakfast. Talk. Talk. I remembered that we had a car and he had been storing some of my art since my mother passed. That stuff got transferred from his closet to our vehicle. We went for a walk in a park. Talk. Talk. Dinner. Sleep.
November 1st we had breakfast with my brother then drove up to Santa Rosa. After checking into our hotel we found a theatre and watched the new Frankenstein movie. We had sushi for dinner at a restaurant near our hotel.
On the 2nd we got some food at Costco and brought it to the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. We’d rented a room there and invited all available Sonoma County friends to join us. It seemed like a better idea than trying to get a bunch of folks together at restaurant or bar. We could be as noisy as we wanted and we had four hours to hang out. Hang out and be noisy we were. About a third of those I’d invited showed up but the smaller group made it easier to talk to everyone.
We drove up Highway 1 from predawn to after sunset on the 3rd. Lots of fog shrouding winding, winding roads. Beautiful forests. Wonderful views of a very active Pacific Ocean. A lot of road construction. Then rain and wind and Google telling us that Highway 101 was closed. It was not. We arrived at a very lovely hotel in Yachats after about fifteen hours on the road.
The hotel also had the most comfortable beds of any place we stayed. Sigh.
After we dragged ourselves out of bed we visited a former room mate from our Santa Rosa days. He made us the same breakfast he used to make back then – eggs, sausage and pancakes. Yumm.
Only four hours on the road up to Portland. We stayed at the McMenamin’s Kennedy Hotel – an old school building that had been converted into a hotel/restaurants/bars/theatre. It’s a very cool place. There we had dinner with a former writing apprentice of Sarah’s and his wife. It was our shortest visit, it being a Tuesday night and them having to work the next day.
Wednesday the 5th we drove home. While we were gone, a friend had stayed over and watched our cats. I rather expected the little monsters to be wary of us after having been gone so long but, no, they just shrugged and continued napping. Mostly. That they slept with us the whole night without walking me up to feed them might have been a clue that they missed us. Maybe.
We drove our friend to the airport on Thursday morning, the 6th, and then crashed. We did little but nap on the couch and watch mystery shows on streaming. It was our best vacation ever. And I still had Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday off from work. To do chores and art. Whew!
Mugshots Gallery – Part Two
Here are the other coffee mug (mostly) designs I did for my Redbubble and Zazzle stores back in 2022.
I am in the process of FINALLY setting up a store here at Skookworks. Both Redbubble and Zazzle are set up to sell schtuff in general rather than schtuff for specific artists. The store I’m working on features links directly to schtuff featuring my art. I’m starting with links to my Redbubble store and then, hopefully, I’ll set up a second store for the Zazzle schtuff. It’s going to take awhile. I have 248 designs on Redbubble and, as I set up the links I’m also adjusting how some of the designs are set up on products.
Anyway. Here’s the Store.
Bobby Deavers, Two Weeks Before
Pencils by Pia Guerra
Story and Art Finishes by David Lee Ingersoll
Published 1993 in Asylum #3
I scanned the pages for this story from a copy of the published comic. Some clean up of the files was required.
When I did this story “going postal” was a bit of black humor and mass shooting were rare things. I was also about twenty years away from working for USPS myself. I have never felt a desire to go on a shooting spree at either of the stations where I have worked.
Nine Panels – Oz Squad
My version of Steve Ahlquist‘s version of the Oz characters.
And th-th-that’s all folks! For now.
Stay chill. Be cool. We can make it!
See you again on December 15th.
