How Do I Spell Vacation - A Nice Art Jaunt with My Wife

Kathleen is about to head out of town for a few days. I’ll follow her tomorrow. She’s headed to an art class in Mount Vernon - near Bellingham, where we used to live. I wish she were going to someplace more exotic and touristy, like Santa Fe, New Mexico or Bend, Oregon, where she’s taken classes before. Those were nice week-long vacations for both of us.

One of Kathleen's Montana pastels

I’m really glad Kathleen is taking this class in Mount Vernon though. She’s an excellent artist, but her interest in art kind of waned the last year or so. She’s been more into music lately, learning to play the recorder. I’ve tried to encourage her to get back to her art - you know, being the good husband that I am - but I had begun to despair. Then she saw a flyer for this class. Yay! The art class I’d really like her to take, however, is a two-week one to be held in Tuscany this summer.

I always have a lot of fun accompanying Kathleen on her art class junkets. While she toils over her canvases all day I’m free to explore the town or play golf or go on a hike, or do nothing but sit at the local coffee watering hole and drink brown java. At night we go out to dinner or dancing or whatever. I can practically feel the warm sun of Tuscany and taste the wonderful wine I’d find there!

I have some nice souvenirs from Bend and Santa Fe. In bend I found a great 8X10 framed photograph of Barney Fife. I love that picture and have it hanging in our garage. Barney’s leaning against the Mayberry patrol car with his empty sidearm on his hip with that sardonic look he always had. Cool!

A treasure I found in Santa Fe is hanging on a wall above our front entrance. It’s a round mirror made of embossed tin with tiny yellow and blue Mexican tiles embedded in it. And it was such a bargain. I hand-carried that thing, hiking several miles across the town of Santa Fe on a 95-degree day, to take it to a UPS store for shipping back home. I love that thing.

Since I don’t think of Mount Vernon as a very touristy town I’m sure I’ll spend some time in nearby La Conner. When we lived in Bellingham (just half an hour’s drive north) we (or I) bought several nice souvenirs in La Conner. I bought a really nice set of dishes there one time. I wish we would be up that way next month when the Tulip Festival is going on, but we’ve attended the Tulip Festival many times so I won’t feel too badly about missing it.

I do plan on heading on up to Bellingham to visit old friends since I’ll be so close. I don’t miss Bellingham as much as I used to - it’s growing too much - but I miss my friends. I’ll probably take a walk in Boulevard Park, which is a beautiful park along Bellingham Bay and used to be a garbage dump for old tires and broken pieces of concrete. A wonderful boardwalk now connects the park to Fairhaven Village, a hippie-sort of touristy enclave at the south end of town. I hope to be able to stop in to the coffee shop across the street from the Mount Baker Theater to see my old friends Pasquali and Maria and enjoy one of their cappuccinos too.

I guess the sun outside and Kathleen’s taking off is making me wax nostalgic. Better shake off the doldrums and go mow the lawn. Ah the life of an artist's husband.