Home sweet home

SOLD

Sitting Pretty  © 2012 Karen Mathison Schmidt, artist

8 x 10 x 7/8 inches • acrylic on cradled GessobordTM

private collection • Whittier, California

Hey, everybody! A week and a half ago I was in Leadville, Colorado, for a family reunion ... enjoying a WONDERFUL getaway, beautiful surroundings, cooler temperatures, great food and fun time with siblings, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles, mom & dad. A sweet, much-needed vacation, but glad to be back home now with husband, dogs and cats. (Paul was unable to go, because he can’t do high altitudes ... one of Leadville’s nicknames is The TWO-Mile-High City; it’s a tad over 10,000 feet.) It’s only taken me a week of being home again to get back into the swing of painting again!

On the trip I took ... are you ready for this? ... over 1,000 photos.

Yep.

A lot were of family at the reunion. And some were of the town of Leadville itself. But most of them were from the car as we zoomed along highways (and a few byways) through Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and back again. I was traveling with my parents and my brother, so don’t worry, I only took photos when I wasn’t behind the wheel. I think I feel a series of  “On the Road” paintings coming on!

Here are all the first cousins who were at the reunion. What a colorful bunch! 

(That’s me in the pink jacket.)

Here we are right after the picture, making way for the next bunch ... you know those family reunion photos: “Now all the sisters ... now all the individual family groups ... now all the kids ... now all the cousins and spouses ... etc. etc. etc. ... now EVERYBODY! ” (I don’t have a copy of the EVERYBODY photo yet. My sister used the timer on her nifty Canon camera to take that one. I’ll be putting more family photos on Facebook for all you family members out there who might be reading this!

Rain on the horizon in New Mexico. Cool, huh?

Going through Colorado.

An old mountain schoolhouse.

It was overcast and chilly when we arrived in historic Leadville.

Some of us camped out in nearby Molly Brown Campground, the actual headquarters 

of the reunion. The rest of us stayed here at the Columbine Inn in Leadville. 

This is the entrance to our hotel lobby. Trés cute.

The view from the hotel parking lot. Not too shabby. 

I think that’s Turquoise Lake in the distance.

Driving home. I’m not sure what this is ... lavender, maybe? Love those colors!

The mountains are breathtaking, but I also think that

Somewhere-In-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, Texas, 

on the way home, is just beautiful!