I wish for each of you the season's very best delights!

I hope your hearts are full, your eyes aglow with joy and you're surrounded by love. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Oh, my goodness, I have so much to tell you! I've been quiet these last few months as I've been working on opportunities and I finally get to share all the joy with you! To cut down on confusion, I'm going to go in date order so I'm sure to cover all the yummy goodness coming up. You can bet I'll be sharing more in the weeks to come!

December 3, 2016
Festive Starfish Designs
Keeton's Office & Art Supplies
Bradenton, Florida
December 3
9 am - 12:30 pm
Cost: $35
Please call 941.747.2995 to register

These festive starfish can be arranged in a number of ways including a ball, a swirl, and a wreath, just to name a few! I know I haven't been able to stop at just one because this idea opens up so many possibilities.

This dimensional project combines scrapbooking paper, extra watercolor paper, salt, glue and a little bling! It's just another way we can make our journals come alive.





Painting Postcards In The Gardens Workshop
August 14-20, 2017
An Imaginary Trip Made Real To England 2017! Workshop
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Do you have a muse? A completely imaginary but totally real artistic influence that gives you courage and encouragement, tempts you to try new things and takes you to places you never would have gone on your own (either in life or in your artwork)?

I do! Her name is Sam and I've spoken about her on the blog before. She is as real to me as you are. I can describe how she looks, how she sounds, how she cuts her eyes at me when I say or think something limiting. 

Okay, I'm in serious denial. This is Florida with temperatures in the high 90's, with hurricanes and tropical storms swirling around us, and we don't see Autumn before December (usually) at the earliest...but why let a little thing like reality spoil the party?!

There will be days when the challenges stack up, left and right.

There will be days when it seems easier just to give into the defeat than to keep fighting.

There will be days when nothing makes sense and the fight seems pointless.

And yet...

There will be days when I remember why I do what I do and why I love what I do. Those are the days I live for. The moments that make up those days are the reasons why I continue to overcome the challenges that would see me give up.

I've recently had a bunch of those challenging days gang up on me all at once. Technology is a wonderful, marvelous thing—until it's not working right, a piece of the system changes or has to be replaced. I use an analogy of a spider web. Wherever a spider web is touched, it is felt all over the web. The bigger the touch, the stronger the vibrations.

My camcorder malfunctioned and I was quite annoyed to learn that the maker considered the camera "obsolete" even though it's only six years old. Of course, in the world of technology, that's a dinosaur. When I switched to a new camera, my lighting setup no longer worked well. More changes. Then there was a memory card malfunction. And if these had the only challenges, it wouldn't have been so bad, but life doesn't work that way. There were other challenges, unrelated to work, going on in the background.

A casualty of those "stacked" challenges was my concentration to write and post to the blog.

There are days when I have to scrape pretty close to bottom before I realize it's not a place I want to be, let alone linger in, and the only way for me to realize this seems to be for me to go there.

One of the things that helped to pull me back up and refill my well was a great class at Keeton's. Since it's been so bloody hot here in Florida (and a lot of other places as well), we worked on painting ice cream in our sketchbooks using stencils for the cone and backgrounds.

And, yes, we had a blast! Below are three of the ladies from class with their gorgeous ice cream cones (everyone chose their own flavors) and there wasn't a calorie in sight.

Marilynn, Mary and Gayle

Once again, it was the healing fun of art, the camaraderie of working with others to learn and create art that seemed to restore a sense of balance to my life.

The challenges are inevitable. To some degree, they're even wanted. How boring would life be with no mountains to climb or obstacles to scale?

And I'm sure there will be more weeks when they all happen at once and yet again, decisions will have to be made about whether to fight or give in.

I'm also willing to bet art will be there to save the day!

How is your (hotter than all-get-out) summer going? Are you painting, sketching or pursuing some other artistic pursuit? Please share in the comments!

Two quick reminders for this week!



An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival will begin this Thursday! We'll be working with all kinds of bright color both close up and at a distance over a field. We'll also play around with all kinds of greens and how to make them interesting. If this sounds like fun to you, come and join me! Please click here or on the class title to sign up!

P.S. As ImaginaryTrips.com will be celebrating six years of creative fun and learning, I am offering this class at a special celebratory price. Check out the link above to find out more!






Next up, if you're anywhere nearby, plan on joining me for a class at Keeton's Office And Art Supply in Bradenton this Saturday, June 25th! We'll be capturing the jeweled wings of the Monarch Butterfly in our sketchbooks! It seems kind of appropriate since today marks the Summer Solstice!

To sign up for this class, please contact Keeton's directly by following the link above!



Hope to see you there or in the Imaginary Realm!

Laying awake last night, I found myself asking the same question over and over.

"How do you stop the hate?"

What would make a young man so full of hate by the ripe, old age of 29, that he would take it upon himself to kill 49 people while leaving scores more injured?

I found no answers. Folks far smarter than me don't seem to have the answers either.

I've watched some of the vigils held around the world to mark solidarity and to remember the victims. I've given money to some of the relief efforts, and yet, I feel...frustrated. Like those few token gestures were not quite enough. Perhaps you've felt the same way?

You may have called your congressman or woman to ask for stronger gun laws, or you've sent a letter or joined in a protest or you may have sat quietly and cried tears for the incredible loss of life. I have.

As I chased this question around and around in my mind last night I finally decided there was something more I could do—I could Pay It In Kindness.

Paying It Forward
Here's my idea—I intend to pay kindness forward 49 times for each of the lives lost. Then I'll pay kindness forward 53 more times for each of those injured. That's 102 acts of kindness paid—deliberately—into a world that seems to have tilted ever so slightly off its axis.

If even one other person joins me, we'll be bring 204 acts of kindness into the world. And if ten of you join me, there will be 1,020 acts. If one hundred people act, that's 10,200 and if a thousand people act, that's well over 100,000 acts of kindness.

Kindness Of Every Kind
There are thousands of ways to be kind. Even the poorest among us can spare a smile or a compliment. It makes no difference if the person knows of our acts or not. Because we know and kindness has a way of making us feel good just as it does the recipient. A few suggestions:

Hold the elevator door...share your umbrella...buy a cup of coffee for the next person in line behind you...help someone pick up spilled items...tell someone how much you like their eyes or their smile...speak kindly when aggravated...take a breath to let go of impatience...tip your waitstaff a larger amount then necessary...let someone in when you're sitting in traffic...give a stranger a flower...let someone have your seat on the subway...smile as you pass people on the sidewalk...stop and visit with an elderly person for a few minutes...tell a child how much they inspire you...give blood...pay the toll for the person behind you...curb your impatience for the person driving slow in front of you...

Maybe, just maybe, if we fill the world with kindness, we'll begin to crowd out the hate that drives someone to harm others.

This Is About The Human Condition
This post is NOT about political party lines, gun laws, alternate lifestyles, religious beliefs, or anything else EXCEPT recognizing we're all in this together and it will take all of us to bring about change. I cannot change the world. You can't either. But we can change ourselves. We can all be kinder and share kindness with those we love as well as unsuspecting strangers.

Please SHARE
I don't usually ask for you to share anything from this blog, but this time, I'm asking you to share this idea with others. Share the graphic at the top of the image along with a link to the post or give it your own spin.

Join me in bringing something good out of the horrific events in Orlando this weekend. 

Thank you.

An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival!

One of the coolest things to happen along my artistic path are the connections I've made along the way. It is odd to me that some of my "closest friends" are people who live thousands of miles from me and I only actually see once in a great while, but then to me, that's the real beauty of the world wide web.

One such connection is Claire McFeely who recently sent me a disk full of gorgeous photos from a trip she took with her family to Skagit Valley, Washington, to the annual Tulip Festival—a place I've always wanted to visit!

Undulating waves of colorful blossoms, kites rising gently over the fields, happy shining faces of the visitors, portraits of delicate tulips lifting towards the sun...and an imaginary visit was born!

I had intended to wait until next April to put the class on the ImaginaryTrips.com class schedule as this when the real festival happens, but I decided I didn't want to wait. This unexpected gift was too bright and colorful and fun to be ignored and we all know artists are hard pressed to ignore any new, bright, colorful, fun thing that comes along!

I invite you to come and visit the tulip festival with me. An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival with start on Thursday, June 23rd! To make this even more of an unexpected gift as Imaginary Trips is celebrating six years of travel sketching, I have included a discount on the pricing of the class. Click here or on the class title to find more information!

Monarch Butterfly on Globe Thistle Ink and Watercolor

The drawing for this piece of art has been sitting on my desk for a while. It took me a while to realize I was avoiding painting it. In its former life, it was a full page sketch with the background mostly abstract containing suggested shapes and lots of greens, yellows, blues and violets.

Meh.

It didn't excite me and it was a lot of space to paint. Especially when I wasn't all that excited about it. (I don't know about you, but if I'm not excited about painting something, I tend to do a lousy job at it.)

After realizing I was resistant to tackling the piece, I began the process of sussing out what the problem was and it was mostly the background. It took up a lot of real estate and it didn't really add anything (IMO).

Playing around with ideas, I scratch out some thumbnails looking for a better overall use of the space.  I was looking for a composition that excited me:
While they're not a lot to look at, thumbnails do the job of visualizing possibilities. Starting at the upper left, I started with a smaller version of the full page, limiting the background and adding a title at the bottom.

I then decided to break the border and put titles at the top and the bottom. I then moved on to putting the title along the right side. From there I abandoned the title idea and put in an erratic line for a border, and—eureka!

I decided to break the border AND put the word, monarch, down the right side, as part of the border.

Once I started drawing the page again, I scaled the box back even more so that butterfly's wings would break through on each side.

That made the stems kinda short and I would have lost one of the leaves, but by leaving them outside of the box, I added a little more interest.

After the painting was done, I decided to add splatters (mostly because I need to camouflage some errant drops of paint). Splatters are an easy way to add energy as well fill in "too" much white space (if that's even possible. I've never had too much white space, but I digress...).

In about half the time it would have taken me to create a full page, I had a page that I not only liked but I'm looking forward to sharing with my class at Keeton's Office and Art Supply on Saturday, June 25th. If you can, please come and join the fun!

Please click Keeton's name to find more info on signing up on the class.

From the Imaginary Visit To Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks class*

Have you ever found yourself desperately wanting to distract yourself from something ongoing in your life and at the same time you're too distracted to do anything for long? 

From the Imaginary Visit To Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks class*

I don't know about you, but every once in a while, life gets obnoxiously tedious with lots of little "events" that I could do without. Things that cause small amounts of stress and worry. By themselves, they're no big deal.

Unfinished Daffs from 2009

But together, it's like being ganged up on and pecked by a bunch of ducks until I'm a bundle of raw nerves. Together, all those events feel huge. Overwhelming.

And that's when I turn to art as an escape.

Back in 2007, when my job was outsourced to another country, I spent 18 months trying to find another. Unfortunately, the economy was in a nosedive and there wasn't much out there. During those months, art became my way of maintaining my sanity.

From 2008

I started sharing my work on this blog and people stopped by to say hello. I found myself with a new community of friends and before I knew it, I was launching Imaginary Trips!

Before I started the trips, I would frequently "run away" to the garden or the kitchen or a coffee shop so I could escape into my sketchbook and away from the worry of trying to find a job in a lousy economy.

What I realized early on, was that I really liked traveling via my imagination! Who knew it would be so much fun. I could go where I wanted, when I wanted and I didn't have to pack a thing!

Imaginary Trips, from the very beginning has been about escape. Sure, the classes are about growing our skills and preparing for a big trip. It's also about going to places we've not been before or are not likely to get to any time soon.

Sometimes, we're not physically able to travel or we can't break from from our obligations and other times, it's not financially feasible.  There are a host of reasons why it makes sense to travel via our imagination rather than in reality.

By going on an imaginary trip, it's possible to control the weather, how long it takes to get somewhere, the circumstances upon which we travel and where we go. We can travel solo or with friends and we don't have to worry about anyone standing around tapping their toe wishing we'd hurry up. There's no rush to get home and we get to sleep in our own beds each night! We don't have to wait for the seasons to change—you can see them all if you want to—on the same trip.

It's also a fabulous way to keep our skills sharp or to continue to grow our skills when we "go on a trip." Especially if I'm preparing for a real trip I have coming up in the future. I find it so much easier to be creative all along rather than to try to get creative right before or during a big trip.

But for me, I think the most important thing about going on an imaginary adventure is that while it lifts me out of my current circumstances, it also allows me control over those circumstances. It allows me to forget about the struggles and worries for those few precious moments I'm in the zone and creating a memory on my sketchbook pages. Stress goes away. Worry melts. Joy comes and infuses the minutes and a sense of balance is restored.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

If you'd like to join in on an imaginary adventure, please join me for "An Imaginary Visit to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Park" starting on May 12th. We'll explore the rugged mountains, hot springs, abundant wildlife and delicate wildflowers without having to camp or sleep on the ground! Click the class title for more info.

If you're not able to join in an interactive class, take a look over at The Imaginary Realm for independent learning classes. They're the same as the interactive classes without the time constraints. You work at your own pace and you have access to the materials for a year. Click on the link for more information.

Detail shot of the front cover

If classes are not for you, strike out on your own. Pick a location and decide when you're going to go, how you'll travel and who will be traveling with you. Look for information on the internet about where you'd like to go along with photos in the public domain to paint from and build an adventure in your sketchbook.

In my "spare" time, I've started a journal to chronicle a trip to the Lavender Festivals. I've only just started it and I work on it in starts and stops, but the time I spend playing in that journal are so very important to my wellbeing. It's a relief to "be away" from the daily grind.


Your imagination is the limit!

Is it my imagination or has the old-fashioned courtesy of taking your hat off when you're inside gone the way of the unicorn?

We went to dinner with my father-in-law the other night and I was amazed at the number of guys (and a few gals) with hats on. I drew the two gentlemen in the sketch above simply because they were sitting in front of us. It also surprised me to see a guy wearing a purple polo! Go, dude, good for you. 

It started out as sketching practice—and I'm pleased to say I'm improving—before becoming more of an awareness about the hats. You haven't seen the other people sketches because they looked more like aliens. Disfigured aliens. Maybe a few zombie aliens. Definitely not pretty. But highly entertaining.

I started looking around and it seemed over 50% of the male population was wearing hats. I'm sure this is nothing new. It's just one of the many gifts of sketching—it tends to raise your level of awareness about what's going on right in front of you.

Have you had that happen to you? You're sketching a place or a thing and suddenly you're launched down a totally unexpected path of learning because the sketching made you slow down to observe? That's what keeps me sketching. Those unexpected paths that lead me to random, seemingly unrelated learnings...that nearly always comes back into play at a later date.

I especially find travel journaling to be like that. Maybe because my mind is already open to new experiences in a place I've not been before. My left brain becomes a little like a toddler, "Why? Why this? Why that? How come that's green or he's wearing that or she said that?"

The cool thing about my left brain being busy is that it leaves my right brain alone and allows it to do what it does best, draw.

If you're interested in learning more about sketching on location, come and join me for An Imaginary Visit To Sweden, starting on April 7th. We'll be explore the country, its people and history. Click here for more info.

P.S. And by the way, National Hat Day is in January. As far as I know there's no National Ball Cap Day! Happy April!!

P.S.S. I am one spread away from being finished with this no name watercolor sketchbook that has been my purgatory for the last six months or so. Cannot wait to be finished with it so I can get back to my beloved Stillman and Birn sketchbook.

Knowing when to give up and go to the beach...sounds so simple, doesn't it?! And yet most of us just keep slogging rather than taking that much needed break.

It's hard to step away even though we may not be at our best and on top of our game. We keep pushing and pushing.

Giving ourselves a break is often much easier to do than we think it is. We may not be able to get to the beach, but what about playing with the dog or sitting in the sunshine?

When I saw the original quote that gave me the idea for this, it was about having a drink and while that works too, I think getting outdoors and enjoying the springtime is a much better choice—especially if you happen to be close to the beach!

With that in mind, I set out to create a quick page in my sketchbook and that blossomed into a class!

I'll be teaching this at Keeton's Office and Art Supply, this Saturday, March 26th. They're located in Bradenton.

I hope you can come and enjoy the fun. You do not know how to do lettering to create the page!

I hope to see you there!

There are those days...when it seems that despite the very best of efforts, mistakes happen.

And let's face it, mistakes are going to happen. They can no more be separated from the creative process than breathing can be separated from living.

We're stuck with them...and I dare say that's a good thing!

When Mistakes Happen
During the last class at Keeton's, I heard the telltale "gasp!" quickly followed by, "Oh no!!" from the artist sitting at the front table.

When I glanced up from helping another artist, Faith* was staring down at her work with a horrified look on her face.

"I painted the strawberry juice on the table instead of on the plate!" she said.

Sure enough, it looked as though someone had been very messy ladling out the strawberries for her shortcake. Of course, they hadn't gotten a drop on the plate!

And here's why I say mistakes are the gateway to creativity—because at this point, we have three options:

1. Start over. Give up, tear the page out, gesso over it, glue another piece of paper down, use acrylic paint to cover the offending gaff, or turn the page and ignore it like it never happened. Optional behaviors: wring hands, gnash teeth, wail inconsolably.
2. Quit. Quit painting, quit sketching, quit trying, quit being creative. Swear off all creative endeavors. Optional behaviors: Sulking, stewing, anger, temper tantrums. 
3. Play. Recognizing the opportunity that's just fallen into your lap and playing! That's right, play. After all, if your other two choices are either to hide or destroy the work and the other is to quit, why not play and see what happens. You will not have lost anything if you still cover up or tear the page out. Optional behaviors: laughing, learning, thinking, smiling, embracing, experimenting, shrugging, moving on.

Starting over can be creative, but what I'm talking about is embracing the mistake and finding a way to incorporate it without giving up and beginning anew. This takes Intelligent Creativity. It requires stepping back, taking an objective look at the work, consider the tools at hands and how best to create something new or different from the detour we took from our expected outcome.

This usually requires a bit of ingenuity and letting go of expectations as to how the page was suppose to turn out.

Are Mistakes Bad?
The foregone conclusion most of us operate under is that mistakes are bad...but are they?

It's worth our time to examine that statement to see if it's true. Have you ever gotten lost on the way to a destination only to discovered a newfound place you'd never have stumbled upon if you had not gotten lost?

When I looked over Faith's page, I saw a "fix" immediately to do away with the messy strawberry juice that marred her creative effort. I suggested painting the "table top" red as if there was a table cloth. And it worked. In fact, it gave her work a strong "pop" of color and a bold, graphic look.

I made a big mistake that day as well. Take a look at the page at the top of this post and you'll see three layers of white whip cream...there were only suppose to be two! This is the page I did for class.

What would have happened if I'd thrown up my hands and quit or gnashed my teeth and threw a temper tantrum because I had too much whip cream? (Is that even possible?!) They probably would have thought I needed some kind of intervention.

Realizing I had too many layers, I decided to incorporate the area to look like an extra layer of whip cream and no one, except for the folks in the class would ever know, unless I told them.

Stop To Think
When we make mistakes, we panic and it seems our default position is usually to start over.

Instead, why not take a deep breath, calm down and figure out a way to make the unexpected change work for us by using our gift of intelligent creativity? By making a conscious decision to let go of our expectations and fear so we can embrace the opportunity to play, we increase our chances of going somewhere new, maybe even better, exponentially.

This is the gateway to creativity and the key usually comes gift-wrapped as a mistake.

What will you do with your next "gift?"

*Faith gave her approval and blessing for me to share her story on the blog. 

Can you go wrong with strawberries...and shortcake and whipped cream? Or dipped in chocolate for some decadent yummy? Or just plain berries, fresh from the field?!

Strawberries are in season in Florida and our Strawberry Festival starts next Thursday so it's seems the perfect time to add some strawberry-awesomeness to our journal.  Berries are a favorite subject of mine because they're easy and because of all that delicious color!

We're going to be painting strawberries AND strawberry shortcake at Keeton's Office and Art Supplies in Bradenton.

Come and join the fun this Saturday, February 27th from 9 am to noon! Please contact Keeton's to register.

Alternate Title: Feeding The Fish

A fanciful interpretation of a Sheephead

Got a few minutes? Let me tell you about our fishing trip last Friday. Our family gave my father-in-law (FIL) a voucher for a fishing trip for his birthday back in September and you know how it goes, we assled (southern word) around and time got away from us.

White Egret looking for an early breakfast

Fast forward to the first of the year and my FIL was in a panic thinking he was going to lose the trip because the voucher was about to expire, so plans were made. And fell through because the weather is kinda iffy out on the water at this time of year with all weather fronts moving through. (Apologies to my Northern friends, I know this is nothing compared to what you're dealing with!)

Gulfport Marina

Finally, the date was set—February 12th and...the weather holds! It's kinda cool and there's a front scheduled to move in, but we're going. Now there is some kind of a law that says you have to go early if you're going to do anything outside (in Florida) and if you're with my FIL, you'll be there even earlier than early.

Unfortunately, the guy with the boat did not get the "early memo" and was not there early. This left us plenty of time to explore the marina. This took about 10 minutes. After that, we started bird watching...osprey, sparrows, egrets and a big blue heron (which I missed getting a photo of). It sounded a little like Jurassic Park with all the bird cries.

He was dissuade from going fishing with us after being shooed away from the boat

Boat guy shows up, gets the boat in the water, gets bait and we're on our way.

The next three and half hours include watching the dolphin, catching fish (and throwing the little ones back), motor issues, being towed, more fishing and finally, coming back in. As they* say, "a bad** day fishing beats the best day in the office."

Engine trouble on the water. This is the tow boat taking us back to shore.

*They as in expert fisherpeople.
**This was in no way a bad day!

Blue skies, sunshine, and biting fish—the recipe for a most excellent day on the water!

Keepers of the day

As for the title of this post, there are times to sketch and there are times not to. I found between the movement of the boat, the boat wakes, the cold and the general environment (wet), I was not inclined to attempt to sketch. even though I had my sketching stuff. The boat was a tight fit for five people with each of us constantly casting, reeling in fish, getting hung on the rocks below and baiting hooks.

The Fishin' Ferlitas!

Could it have been done? Yes. However, after weighing the odds of dropping my sketchbook (probably overboard, knowing me) and/or being in the way of the others, it didn't seem worth the attempt. I waited until I was home and the floor had quit moving before sitting down to sketch.

Up above you see my take on a colorful Sheephead rather than with its normal coloring. An excellent reminder of a super fun day with family doing something we all love. And we still have the fish fry to look forward to! Yum!!

An Imaginary Visit To Norway starts March 3rd!

Examining My Approach

First Up: Quick Lettering Guide Tutorial

There are times when I'm out in the field and I don't want to take the time to carefully draw out lines to get a title of type just right. With this in mind, I came up with a quick way to do lettering without having to invest a lot of time.

Once your art is complete and you're ready to add your title, grab a piece of paper. In my example, I'm using tracing paper as I usually have a piece tucked into the back of my journal. Plain white paper works just as well. (The art is from the Keeton's class demo I did this past Saturday.)

The art is fine the way it is, but I really wanted to add the word, Seaside, at the top of the art.  I probably should have used "gulfside" as this is the Gulf of Mexico. You can click on the photos to see the steps more clearly.

Size the tracing paper to the width of the area where you want the type to appear. In my case, I wanted my type to stretch all the way across the top of the art. Please click on the photos to see the steps more clearly.

Once you have the size, fold the paper in half, then into quarters and then down to eighths. This step really depends on how many letters you'll be using. Fold down as much as you want, but the more folds you have the smaller the lettering will be. It may be necessary to space the words rather than the letters. Please click on the photos to see the steps more clearly.

Once I have my folds, I usually mark the folds as it makes them easier to see. I also mark my center fold with a "c." Based on how many letters and the lettering style I want, I then write out my word(s).

If you already know what lettering style you want, you can use the edge of the paper as your straight line. If you're going to play around with a few different styles, draw out several straight lines to practice different styles.

Knowing I really wanted the long, stretchy lettering, I flipped my paper and wrote out my letters in between the folds rather than on the folds themselves as I did in the first example.

Next Up: NEW Classes Over At ImaginaryTrips.com!!
Okay, I'll admit I jumped the gun a little bit as the poll is still open, but Norway got out in front and never looked back! It's a pretty safe bet we'll be heading there first! To learn more about An Imaginary Visit To Norway, please click HERE! Class will get started on Thursday, March 3rd. Come and join the fun! Did you know they have a knighted penguin?! (I didn't either!)

After Norway, we'll head over to Sweden as Norway and Sweden share a border of over 1,000 miles. The history they share is also quite complex and intertwined. We'll head out for An Imaginary Visit To Sweden on Thursday, April 7th. Wanna come along? Click HERE to learn more! Sweden is home to the largest reindeer herd in the world and I'm pretty sure they've a huge moose population as well.

There's still time to vote on the poll and help decide where we go after we leave Sweden! Click HERE to go to the poll. It's open until February 1st!

I look forward to traveling with you this year!