Okay, I know this has nothing to do with painting, but I just finished the most miserable camping trip - ever (well, almost ever, anyway). We went to Crater Lake to spend a few days, got there in the afternoon, started setting up the tent, and realized there were massive swarms of mosquitoes (think Hitchcock's birds but substitute mosquitoes), attacking us as if we were their last chance at avoiding certain and imminent starvation! Really, when one of us was in the sun, there was this aura of the blood-sucking creatures floating around the entire person. We thought it was because it was a bit late in the day, so we stuck it out and stayed the night -- after we killed around a hundred of them that had gotten into the tent. The next morning, at around 5 am (really!), we thought everything was great - no mosquitoes. But by around 6 am, they were out again! They were even diving into my "camp coffee" as I tried to boil it. No kidding; I've never seen so many at once in all my life. So we took a hike and came back around 11 am, and they were still there, in full sunlight. By 2 pm, as we sat huddled in the tent slathering ourselves once again with $11-per-bottle mosquito repellant bought at the camp store, we decided just to give up and leave -- forfeiting our prepaid nights at the campsite but saving what little blood we had left. We counted the number of bites on my daughter's back when we finally got back home, and she had 22 bites just on her back.
I took my paints and some 8x10 boards, and I had every intention of doing quite a number of small landscape paintings - finally. But the paints were never touched : (
Anyway, it was quite a disappointment. We're going to try the coast next time - it's got to be better.
Okay, thanks for listening to me. I feel much better now. But I don't think I'll ever go back to Crater Lake again. Let's hope the coast is better.
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