Tuesday, August 18, 2009

on vacation...

Sorry for the long delay since my last post. First I was preparing for the SCBWI National Conference, and then, just two days post-conference, we left town for a 10-day trip to the East Coast. No rest for the weary! hah.

As I type, I'm chilling in the "Chauffeur's Cottage" of a historic manor in Bar Harbor, Maine, (pronounced Bah-Hah-Bah), resting after a day of lobster eating and bald eagle spotting. I haven't had a moment still enough for sketching. But that means I'm on the move, filling up my mind to the brim full of ideas to take with me to the drawing table!

For example, who knew there was a nightly Lumberjack Show just outside of town? I sure didn't! Who knew lobsters could grow to be 6 feet long? Prehistoric, man! And I didn't know pitcher plants and cranberries grew side-by-side in bogs, either. And one more: seals take 10-15 second micro-naps by 'bottling' - just sticking their noses out of the water so they could breathe while catching a little shut eye - by bottling, Harbor Seals don't actually have to haul out to sleep (unclear on whether this is specific to this particular sub-species).

Those were just a few of the little factoids that keep me smiling. I'll be back in a week!