The bold get up early and seize the day. They also seize all of the parking spots on the southwest shore of Tahoe by 9 in the morning on hot summer days. Earlier this day I was rather bold myself, rising before 6am and seizing a primo spot just about the falls in the previous painting. I was done by 10am or so, thinking I would have plenty of time to get in to the beach lot at D L Bliss State Park for another painting before connecting with my family later in the afternoon at Meeks Bay.

That may have been bold of me, but it was also very mistaken. The bolder ones had already arrived and for the second day in a row I was denied access to Bliss. Meekly I headed up the coast to our campground and found a spot in the shade to paint this consolation piece, looking back at the shore where I’d spend the next day wallowing in the shallows with a camera hunting for tubes among the boatwakes on my own handmade artificial sandbars. But that’s another story…

In my defeat, my eyes cast downward and for the only time on this trip my painting’s composition contained no sky, instead focused solely on the rocks and water before me. In fact, since the other 9 sold so quickly I decided to hang on to this one for my family. Maybe one of my grandkids will inherit it one day.