Lake O'Hara

This is where we went for years to hike in the Canadian Rockies. It is a pastel made in Yolo National Park in Canada by Montreal artist Horace Champagne, who was often a guest at the Lake O'Hara Lodge when we stayed there. He was a very dignified man who we would come upon as we toiled some steep trail sitting before his easel in the snow on his camp stool working on one of his wonderful plein air paintings.

After thinking about to for years,  I finally worked up the courage to write him and ask  if I could buy one of his paintings. He  was very gracious and put me in touch with a gallery in Calgary that handled his paintings. They sent several photographs, we chose this one, and a few days later it arrived at our door in Berkeley.    No money changed hands until I called to tell them that we would be keeping the one they had sent. It was all very civilized and the painting has hung above our fireplace, first in Berkeley and now here in Santa Rosa ever since. I wish I was there right now....

It is a comment on what kind of day it was today when I say that the most exciting thing I did today was go to the dental hygienist. She told me that dentists are not considered 'essential' and that if even one Covid case is traced to a dentist, they will all be closed down again. I admit that I had a few qualms about going but the newly installed HEPA air filter kept the place as cold as the crypt in spite of the temperature outside and I almost froze in my T-shirt and cotton trousers. The hygienist looked like an alien in her mask and clear plastic visor. Because of concerns about 'aerosols' they can't use the sonic scaler and instead have resorted back to medieval hooks and picks and scrapers. 

Still not my favorite thing to do on a lovely summer day....