On the Road Again, after a Creative Jojoba Hills Winter

Hello all!  Merikay's Dream is up and running again.

A beautiful big storm cloud hovered over us at our site in Santa Rosa Lake State Park, New Mexico. Unfortunately it only yielded a few half dollar size raindrops before it blew away. The horrible drought conditions have almost dried up the lake in the park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We started our 2022 summer travels on Saturday April 23rd with a short run from Jojoba Hills in Southern California to the Velocity Truck Center in Tolleson Arizona, which is just west of Phoenix. Our annual maintenance work was completed in one day, but not much of the other desired work was addressed. To put it mildly, we were dissatisfied with their service, and have now secured a fall appointment in Gaffney, South Carolina.

The Gaffney appointment, at the Freightliner headquarters, will be the third firm destination in our East Coast itinerary, which includes:

1. By the end of May we need to be in the Boston area for our grandson's graduation from MIT.

2. By the end of July we want to take a ferry to Newfoundland, and spend most of August there.

3. By late September we will get to Gaffney South Carolina for the appointment.

If you add on our return, and a few side trips, we will be traveling about nine thousand miles in six months. Just for comparison, we drove 13,766 miles in 2014, and 11,096 in 2019. Although it can be stressful at times, we do enjoy driving, trying to limit our days to around 300 miles maximum.

But before I start writing about our new travels, I want to write about what I did during our Jojoba Hills winter.

For any new followers, we have a home base RV site at Jojoba Hills, an SKP resort in Aguanga, California. We spent six months there in 2021-2. Jojoba offers many creative opportunities, but after retiring from my own animal head sculpture business, I didn't do much art work or participate in their activities for several years. Finally, in November I joined a Gnome-making class at the pottery studio, and was hooked.

Over the next few weeks, I made 4 gnomes and 3 mushrooms for our yard.

I then spent most of the winter days creating sculptures for my "Alice in Jojoba" project. I plan to hang them in a roadside tree on our site next fall and call it an "Installation".

These are just a few of the sculptures for the tree

I also did a couple of ceramic projects that will be donated and sold at the Jojoba "Artisan" Fair in December. The proceeds from the sale will benefit the Art, Craft, Pottery, and Sewing centers.

These are the first few  ceramic pendants I created. Each butterfly is freehand glazed. 

I use one to hold my name tag pin. 

I spent many contented hours in the Alfa glazing larger butterflies.

Each of the larger ones is about 4" wide. I cut the shapes out of clay with a cookie cutter. I used epoxy glue to attach sticks so that they can be put into flower pots. They will also be donated for the Fair. 

The  Pottery studio has been my happy place this year. I have met the nicest group of creative people I have ever known. Everyone is so supportive and fun!

Just before the end of March I signed up for a small sculpture workshop in the Art Studio trailer. I just wanted to experiment with a yard art piece, but ended up expressing what this year has meant to me:

I called it JOY

I write this blog for several reasons. By writing about the places we go, and taking and posting pictures, it strengthens my memories and give me a way to look back on them. At the same time, it gives me a reason to "look" more closely at a place and take pictures. I enjoy knowing that other people have read my ramblings, and appreciate any and all comments. They let me know YOU are out there and give me another reason to keep it up.

FYI: How to find me

Obviously, because you are reading this, you have found me, but if you want to share, I post links on my own Facebook page and on our Jojoba Hills Unofficial Chat Facebook group. If you are also on Blogger and are one of my followers, you will see new posts on your Blog List.

I'll post again soon, so come along for the ride.