About three years ago we took a trip out to Spokane, Washington to visit the Big Guy’s brother. our western family, being extraordinarily awesome hosts, and kicked off the week with a visit to Montana’s Hiawatha Trail, a mountain bike trail that runs 15 miles downhill through an old railroad bed. The trip was easy, the scenery was breathtaking, and the four of us couldn’t stop smiling for days.
We’ve been back to Spokane into the Palouse, and it has spawned some of the most creative periods in my life. I knew that intense drive what happened again, I just didn’t know how to spark it.
I don’t need an intense flame sit down and paint or draw, but wasn’t until today that I really remembered how about frenzied need to create felt.
It happened about the time our tour bus was driving us around Þingvellir Lake as our guide pointed out the side of the world oldest parliament (now buried and then relocated to Reykjavík after an earthquake) and a great crevice that divided the north American and duration tectonic plates. Mother Nature’s massive,carved mountains surrounded us, bathed in Iceland’s early autumn sun. We segued to the largest waterfall in Europe–almost as big as Niagara Falls and unmarred by any shops — and then went on to look at a nearby geysers, surpassed in size only by Old Faithful in Yellowstone national park.
The Icelanders have built only the minimum of safety features around these powerful displays of nature, and we were separated from the danger only by a thin rope that served as a reminder not to go too far. Nowhere did the ropes prevent us from opening our souls to the spray of the falls and the bursting steam of the geysers, I’m by the days and none of us could stop smiling.
And the same awesome power of nature that has semi-permanently plastered smiles on our faces seem to have magically filled the first pages of my sketchbook. Seems like there could be a connection.